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CRAYON SKETCHES 



BY AN AMATEUR. 



C^yi 



EDITED BY THEODORE S^'FAY. 



IN TWO VOLUMES. 

VOL. I. 



NEW-YORK: 
CONNER AND COOKE, FRANKLIN BUILDINGS. 

Press of G. P. Scott & Co.— Nassau Street. 

1833. 






^^ 



^ c\ T ^/ ^; 



TO WASHINGTON IRVING, ESQ. 



/O ^ 



SI 



MV DEAR SIR, 

In early boyhood the charms of htera- 
ture first broke upon me through the pro- 
ductions of your pen ; gratitude, therefore, 
as well as respect and admiration, induces 
me to dedicate to you the following com- 
positions of one who also warmly appre- 
ciates the treasures which you have added 
to the English language. 

Believe me, my dear sir. 

Very gratefully and sincerely 
Your ob't servant, 

THEODORE S, FAY. 

New-York, June 10, 1833. 



PREFACE 



BY THE EDITOR. 



The following essays and sketches origi- 
nally appeared in the New- York Mirror, 
under the signature of C. In collecting 
them for publication, in the present form, 
the editor, if he may assume so dignified an 
appellation, is actuated by two motives : 
first, a desire to do justice to the abilities 
of a valued and long absent friend, whose 
reluctant consent has been yielded only to 
repeated solicitations ; and, second, to fur- 
nish for the public a book marked by 
humor and originality of thought, and an 
agreeable companion for a dull hour. 

The editor does not rely solely on his 

own estimation of their excellence, although 

1* 



VI PREFACE. 



he thinks the author, what some critic less 
appropriately called Milton, " a very good 
writer — veryT Many of the articles have 
been extensively copied, and one in par- 
ticular, after a tour through Great Britain, 
was, with a slight alteration of the title, 
transplanted into an American paper as a 
rare foreigner, and in that capacity gained 
a good deal of extra attention; just as a 
townsman, dwelling all his life in the midst 
of us, dependent only upon good sense and 
virtue, may languish in obscurity, but, after 
a few years abroad, finds an Italian air and 
a pair of moustaches, a passport to the 
tables of the wealthy and great. The " Man 
of the Fly-market Ferry," " Passages in the 
Life of an Unfortunate," " The Epicurean," 
the "Biography of Jacob Hays," "Oysters," 
&c., are curious and amusing specimens of 
hterary caricatures, completely and justly 
turning into ridicule a style of writing bom- 
bastically about nothing, too popular and 



PREFACE. Vll 



common, especially among contributors to 
periodicals. They have been highly com- 
mended as satires, at once forcibly and 
fehcitously drawn. 

Another kind of essay will be found in 
the succeeding pages, which attract atten- 
tion, and surprise one into merriment, by 
the novel views taken of hacknied subjects, 
and the sly pleasantry with which they 
advocate the wrong side of the question. 
Among them are the defence of "Idle 
People," the raillery against "Early Rising," 
and the address to the " Marriageable 
Ladies of the United States." No intelli- 
gent reader will beheve that the author 
intends, in the last, seriously to discounten- 
ance temperance societies, which have 
certainly been productive of great benefits 
to the nation. It is a mere exhibition of 
the irony and talent for burlesquing, in 
which he is very successful. 

No apology is deemed necessary for in- 



Vm PREFACE. 

troducing the theatrical portraits, which ap- 
pear in the second volume. Although they 
are of a transitory nature, most of the sub- 
jects are yet before the public; and, be- 
longing to a profession, the members of 
which are known by their talents to large 
classes of people, and generally called to 
mind with pleasurable associations — de- 
scriptions of them, like their pictures, are 
recognized with interest. Little need be 
said of them by the editor, except that the 
sketch of Fanny Kemble does no justice to 
her present improved talents and brilhant 
eminence, and that the badinage directed 
against Mr. Richings (who is, seriously, an 
excellent and useful actor) must be re- 
garded as intended good-naturedly, and as 
merely the offspring of a merry mood. Mrs. 
Sharpe too has improved, in many respects, 
since our artist pencilled her features so 
rapidly. 

There are several local allusions, and hits 



PREFACE. IX 



at passing events, which might have been 
expunged ; but the author not being in the 
country, the editor was unwilKng to alter 
the text, and it is hoped that the fact of the 
pieces' having been originally composed for 
a periodical, will be received as a sufficient 
explanation. If discrepancies, deficiencies, 
or tautologies be discovered, it will be 
recollected that the essays are not de- 
liberately prepared, revised and corrected 
by the author, and put forth by him as spe- 
cimens of his abihties ; but that they are 
mere unpremeditated efiusions, struck out 
in the heat of the moment, intended but 
for a careless, passing glance, and then 
to be thrown aside and forgotten. They 
were hastily furnished for the Mirror, at the 
solicitation of George P. Morris, Esq. a gen- 
tleman to whose discriminating zeal in the 
cause of x^merican periodical literature they 
owe their existence. The editor trusts that, 
on this occasion, criticism will not be incon- 



X PREFACE. 



siderately severe, but, instead of coldly re- 
pressing the talent here displayed, that it 
will encourage the youthful writer to more 
elaborate efforts. 



CONTENTS OF VOL I. 



PAGE. 

Traveling, — mentally and bodily, 13 

Debating Societies, 24 

Respectability, 34 

A few of the inconveniences of seeing Shakspeare acted,.... 41 

Money, 55 

An humble Address to the Marriageable Ladies of the U. S. 64 

Bulwer and Scott, 77 

A Walk in Broadway, 96 

Steam, 106 

Biography of Jacob Hays, 118 

Love of Change — House Hunting, 126 

Hypocondriacism, o 136 

Idle People, 145 

Prize Tragedies, 154 

Oysters, 161 

Passages in the Life of an Unfortunate, 169 

Spring, 183 

Philadelphia, New- York and Boston, 190 

Old Songs, 200 

Morality, Horse-racing, 214 

Eating, 221 

Albums, 228 

Contentment, 237 



ERRATA. 

Page 56 11th line from bottom— /or " am content,'' read is content. 
65 6th line from bottom— /or "has all hilarity," read liave, &c. 
75 12th and 13th lines from bottom— reac? " feast of reason and the 

flow of soul." 
167 2d line 2d verse— /or "might draw," read might'st draw. 
167 3d line same verse— /jr "was torn," read wast torn. 
222 20th line from bottom-/or "comes," rec(Z come, 
237 7th line from top— /or "indifferent;" readbeing indifferent. 



TRAVELING. MENTALLY AND BODILY. 

It is a wholesome thing to be what is commonly 
termed " kicked about the world." Not literally 
"kicked" — not forcibly propelled by innumerable 
feet from village to village, from town to town, or 
from country to country, which can be neither 
wholesome nor agreeable; but knocked about, 
tossed about, irregularly jostled over the principal 
portions of the two hemispheres ; sleeping hard 
and soft, living well when you can, and learning 
to take what is barely edible and potable ungrum- 
blingly when there is no help for it. Certes, the 
departure from home and old usages is any thing 
but pleasant, especially at the outset. It is a sort of 
secondary " weaning" which the juvenile has to un- 
dergo ; but like the first process, he is all the health- 
ier and hardier when it is over. In this way, it is 
a wholesome thing to be tossed about the world. 
To form odd acquaintance in ships, on the decks of 
steam boats and tops of coaches ; to pick up tem- 

2 



14 TRAVELING, 

porary companions on turnpikes or by hedge-sides ; 
to see humanity in the rough, and learn what stuff 
hfe js made of in different places ; to mark the 
shades and points of distinction in men, manners, 
customs, cookery, and other important matters as 
you stroll along. What an universal toleration it 
begets ! How it improves and enlarges a man's 
physical and intellectual tastes and capacities ! How 
diminutively local and ridiculously lilliputian seem 
his former experiences ! He is now no longer big- 
otted to a doctrine or a dish, but can fall in with 
one, or eat of the other, however strange and fo- 
reign, with a facility that is truly comfortable and 
commendable : always, indeed, excepting, such 
doctrines as affect the feelings and sentiments, which 
he should ever keep " garner'd up" in his *' heart of 
hearts ;" and also, always excepting the swallowing 
of certain substances, so very peculiar in themselves, 
and so strictly national, that the undisciplined 
palate of the foreigner instinctively and utterly 
rejects them, such as the frog of your Frenchman — 
the garlic of your Spaniard — the compounds termed 
sausages of your Cockney — the haggis of your 
Scotchman — the train-oil of your Russian. 

He has but little of the ardent spirit of boyhood, 
or the mounting spirit of manhood in him, who can 
quietly seat himself by his father's hearth, dear 



MENTALLY AND BODILY. 15 

though it* be, until that hearth, by virtue of inher' 
itance becomes his own, without a wish to see how 
the world wags beyond the walls of his native 
town. How mulish and uncompromising he grow- 
eth up ! How very indocile and incredulous he 
becometh ! To him localities are truths — ^right is 
wrong and wrong is right, just as they fall in with 
or differ from the customs of his district ; and all 
that is rare or curious or strange or wonderful or 
different from what he has been accustomed to,. is 
measured by the petty standard of his own expe- 
rience, and dogmatically censured or praised accord- 
ingly. Such men are incurable, and what is worse, 
legal nuisances — they can neither be abated by law 
nor logic. 

I like human nature of quite a different pat- 
tern. A boy, especially, is all the better for a 
strong infusion of credulity in his composition. He 
should swallow an hyperbole unhesitatingly, and 
digest it without difficulty. It is better for a juve- 
nile to be ingenuous than ingenious. It is better 
for him to study Baron Munchausen than Poor 
Richard's Maxims. The Baron's inventions fertilize 
his imagination without injuring his love of truth ; 
Poor Richard's truisms teach him nothing but that 
cold worldly wisdom he is almost sure to learn, and 
learn too soon. Strong drink is not for babes and 



16 TRAVELING. 

sucklings ; neither is miserly, hard-hearteH proverbs 
-r-^^ a penny saved is a penny earned" — " a groat a 
day is a pound a year," and such like arithmetical 
wisdom. Keep it from them: it takes the edge 
off their young sensibilities, and sets them calculat- 
ing their charities. They will learn selfishness soon 
enough without taking regular lessons. The good 
Samaritan, honest man, cared not a fig-leaf for such 
axioms, or he too would have "passed by on the 
other side." 

Not that I mean to question the utility of arith- 
metical studies for children, or inculcate the neglect 
of worthy proficients or professors therein. Hutton, 
Tinwell, Bonnycastle, or more ancient Cocker ; — 
far from it, I have too severely ere now experienced 
the ill-effects of slighting the multiplication table 
and other loftier branches of arithmetic ; but I could 
not then help it. I was a great traveler when a 
boy, though not in the body; in imagination I 
had circumnavigated the globe. A book of voyages 
and travels was to me better than a holiday, and I 
devoured the pages of Wallis, Oartwright, Byron, 
and other navigators with an appetite that now 
seems to me to have been really preternatural. How 
I used to trudge away, not unwillingly to school, if 
I had only Robinson Crusoe (which was then a 
most veritable and authentic document) smuggled 



MENTALLY AND BODILY. 17 

away in my satchel amidst grammars, dictionaries, 
and other necessary and disagreeable productions. 
Then Cook's Voyages ! What an oceeTn of pleasure 
to me were his ocean wanderings ! How did they 
divide, or rather completely abstract my faculties 
from subtraction, multiplication, or division (short 
or long) ! I was saihng far away, in the good ship 
Endeavor, over the inimitable Pacific, — what were 
vulgar fractions to me? I coasted through the 
Friendly Islands and took no heed of decimals ; 
and, as far at least as I was concerned, arithmetical 
progression became stationar)^ I might be ostensi- 
bly in practice ; but my practice was to go on in- 
dulging in stolen sweets •' from morn till noon, from 
noon till dewey eve," until the awful hour of retri- 
bution arrived, and I was called upon to exhibit the 
sum total of my day's industry. This generally 
consisted of one or more questions " cabbaged" or 
stolen from some of my precursors in those difficul- 
ties. Sometimes they passed muster ; but oh ! the 
opaque darkness — the cheerless, hopeless, mental 
blindness in which I found myself enveloped when- 
ever my worthy teacher requested me to " show how 
I came by the answer." How I came by it in one 
sense — how improperly and feloniously I came by 
it, I knew full well ; but as for establishing any 
legitimate claim to the product, as for showing by 



18 TRAVELING. 

any given process how the answer could be cor- 
rectly deduced from the premises, it was only a 
waste of his time and mine to request such a thing. 
Then poor left hand, came thy trial — " not for thine 
own demerits but for mine," fell blows from supple 
cane or leathern thong right heavily on thee ! Many 
a blush and bruise La Perouse and Captain Cook 
cost thee — ill-used member — unfortunate extremity. 
But I was incorrigible. Blows ^nd admonitions 
were equally unavailable. I did not see or feel the 
moral justice of either one or the other ; they were 
to me things of course — necessities, not judicious 
punishments ; inevitable consequences, which must 
be endured and could not be avoided, and the next 
day I was again amongst my old friends the island- 
ers, tattooing warriors, roasting dogs and marvelling 
how such " strange flesh" would eat when cooked, 
or performing any other equally curious or inge- 
nious operations. When not reading I was dream- 
ing. From the hubbub of the school I could trans- 
port myself in a twinkling to some fair Otaheitan 
isle— some speck of verdure that " lit the ocean with 
a smile," where summer, and gentle gales, and 
beauteous flowers, and odoriferous spices were per- 
petual ; and there, where " feathery cocoas fring'd 
the bay," would I lay myself down and watch the 
breaking of the waves upon the sparkling shore, 



MENTALLY AND BODILY, 19 

until the tumbling of a slate or book, or the harsh 
growl of the master, startled me from my day-dream 
and brought me to a sense of things more immedi- 
ate and material. But I possessed in a high degree 
the happy faculty of abstraction — a faculty that can 
transplant you in an instant from the dullest scenes 
and company to the brightest and gayest — and in a 
few moments I was again " all abroad" — ^listening 
to the roar of Niagara — scrambling over the blue 
mountains of Jamaica — lolling in the orange groves 
of the Indies, — until, after years of wandering I 
would fancy myself returning to anxious friends 
and old companions. 

*' When the flower was in the bud, and the leaf upon the tree, 
With the lark to sing me hamc to my ain countree." 

What was the petty pain of a few blows (I never 
felt the disgrace) to such visions of delight ? Noth- 
ing. And so I continued — a boy inured to stripes, 
and utterly destitute of all marks or orders of merit 
— the tail of my class — the superlative degree of 
comparison for idleness and inability. No " speci- 
men" of my proficency in the art of chirography was 
ever exhibited before company in the parlor of my 
parents; nor 

" When friends were met, and goblets crown'd," 

was I ever called upon, like other boys, to exem- 



20 TRAVELING. 

plify the beauties of the British Poets by my juvenile 
powers of recitation. 

I have traveled much in reality since then, and 
beheld with the corporeal eye many of the scenes 
and places that looked so surpassingly fair to my 
inward vision in former times. I have become 
" familiar with strange faces," and have made 
friends and acquaintance in far-off countries. But 
time and the world have done their usual work 
with me as with others. I am changed — vilely 
sophisticated ; the smoke of cities is upon my soul, 
and innumerable trivial sensualities have imper- 
ceptibly clogged the elastic spring of the spirit within 
me. To enjoy the company of old mother nature 
now, I must have " all appliances and means to 
boot" — be easy and comfortable, neither hungry nor 
athirst, instead of seeking her in every form and 
mood as of yore. But this is the way, more or 
less, with us all. As we grow up, we acquire an 
unconscious preference for art above nature — we 
love the country less and the town more, and shady 
walks and " hedge rows green" are forsaken for well- 
paved streets and public promenades. We muddle 
our brains with politics and political economy, and 
form attachments to newspapers and distilled and 
fermented liquors that it is often difficult to shake off. 
Oh the lamentable deterioration of human nature I 



MENTALLY AND BODILY. 5Jl 

We are the antipodes (to our disadvantage,) of even 
the despised caterpillar tribe. We do not expand from 
the grub into the butterfly, but degenerate from the 
butterfly into the grub. When boys — or wingless 
butterflies, — we disport in the free air and sunshine, 
clad in the hues of health, and as free from care or 
trouble as the lilies of the field. Every returning 
day brings animation and enjoyment — 



" Flowers in the valley, splendor in the beam, 
Health in the gale, and freshness in the stream," 



until the remorseless usages of the world appren- 
tice us to doctors, tailors, lawyers, merchants, ship- 
WTights, sugar-bakers, <fec. to be initiated into their 
respective mysteries ; Ave grow up to be sallow, 
bearded men — we herd together in cities — we mo- 
notonously slink day after day from the dull obscu- 
rity of our dwellings through dirty lanes and dusky 
alleys to our strange occupations, and then crawl 
back again — we snarl at and undermine each 
other — we play with unbecoming zeal " much ado 
about nothing" for a few years — we die some day 
just when we did not want to do so — the living clod 
is resolved into the lifeless one, and we become — a 
dream, a recollection, a dimly-remembered thing, 
of whom perchance, some singular custom or odd 
saying is recorded, at intervals, for a brief space of 



22 TRAVELING. 

time, and then (to all worldly intents and purposes) 
we are as if we had never been ! 

There is, however, to counterbalance the many 
pleasures and advantages of traveling, one pecuUar 
unpleasant sensation, which nearly all who have 
journeyed must have felt. It is, in passing away 
from any place where you have been warmly wel- 
comed and hospitably treated — where you have 
interchanged good offices, and eat and drank and 
held pleasant communion with kindly pieces of 
humanity — the thought that you pass away for 
ever — that you will see then no more ! Their joys 
or sorrows, their smiles or tears, are thenceforward 
nothing to you — you have no further portion in 
them — you will know them no more 1 It is, in truth, 
a most unpleasant feeling ; but a man had better 
suffer from it, than be without it. I do not, how- 
ever, relish that easily excited, indiscriminating 
kindness, awakened on evejry occasion ; that un- 
varying civility — that ready-made sympathy so 
common in this world of ours. I dislike your polite 
smilers, on first acquaintance; fellows who will 
shake you by the hand, bow, and smile at meeting ; 
and shake you by the hand, bow, and smile at 
parting, with equal indifference. Though not 
altogether to be commended, I rather prefer their 
opposites — the race of unapproachables ; persons of 



MENTALLY AND BODILY. 23 

cloudy and uninviting aspects, who station them- 
selves in the less frequented parts of steamboats, 
and odd corners of stage-coaches ; who speak when 
they cannot help it, and with whom a civil sentence 
seems the prelude to suffocation. When the ice is 
once broken, when you do get acquainted with 
them, there is often much good fruit under the 
rough rind ; and when the time for separating 
arrives, they look half sulky, half sorrowful, as they 
give you their hand — as much as to say, " we might 
have been better friends, but your road lies that 
way — and mine this, and so — good-by." I would 
be bail for one of those personages ; I would put 
my hand to a bond for him, (which I look upon to 
be the extreme test of human confidence,) but for 
your ever-ready smilers, they have, in general, no 
more heart than an infantile cabbage — all leaves 
and husk, husk and leaves — "let no such men be 
trusted." 



DEBATING SOCIETIES. 



''There are many evils in the present state of society, which it is much 
easier to censure than eradicate."— ikfodern Moralist. 



One of the most pernicious mischiefs of the pre- 
sent times, and one most pregnant with the seeds of 
individual discomfort and general unhappiness, is 
the rapid increase of Debating Societies; or, ra- 
ther, societies for the annoyance of the community 
— night-schools for the education of youth in flip- 
pancy and sophistry — seminaries for the full devel- 
opement of the organ of self-sufficiency — arenas 
for the exposure of the weakness of the human 
intellect, and the depreciation of heaven's creatures 
in the opinion of all coijsiderate people. These 
excrescences are springing into existence on every 
side, and are productive of the most lamentable con- 
sequences. When I see (as I have seen) a meek, 
diffident juvenile of eighteen or nineteen, of the right 
age to imbibe wholesome, quiet wisdom and nutri- 
tious instruction — seduced from his darling books, 
and peaceful solitary chamber, to attend one of those 



DEBATING SOCIETIES. 25 

pestiferous places, where, what they call "ques- 
tions," are regularly discussed ; when I see such an 
one led on, step by step, by a little empty applause, 
to exchange the modest diffidence that would gladly 
learn, for the misplaced confidence that would 
boldly teach, until he becomes, in the course of 
time, a confirmed, hardened debater, lost to all sense 
of shame and idea of propriety— a perpetual tor- 
ment to his more immediate relatives and connec- 
tions, and an unceasing nuisance to all the other 
members of the great human family with whom he 
may be brought into juxtaposition, I confess I can- 
not but feel a strong distaste for those reprehensible 
nurseries for bad speeches and worse arguments. 

Reader ! didst thou ever misspend a few hours at 
a debating society? If so, then hast thou seen 
" pitiful ambition" in all its infinite varieties, and 
almost every stage and degree of folly, froth, and 
fatuity. How didst thou preserve thy serenity? 
Thou mightst have looked, indeed, with calm, con- 
templative benevolence on some piece of leaden- 
headed ignorance, who, after a week's cogitation, 
gravely and seriously set about building up a repu- 
tation by announcing that " virtue was its own 
and best reward," "vice eventually its own punish- 
ment," and other similar originaUties ; but there is 
a species of reptile to be met with in those congre- 

VOL. I. 3 



26 DEBATING SOCIETIES. 

gations of raw intellects, that is, to me at least, 
peculiarly and distressingly repulsive. It is gener- 
ally in the shape of a good4ooking^ smooth-faced, 
self-sufficient, young gentleman, the leader, the 
looked-up-to of the society, one skilled in quibbles, 
quotations, and paradoxes; who thinks truth be* 
neath his advocacy, and makes a point of taking 
what is called the " difficult side of the question," 
in order to show off his surplusage of uncommon 
qualities, by confuting his humble satellites, who 
ingloriously content themselves with a homely, 
obvious view of the matter in dispute. I am not 
naturally blood-thirsty; but still, when I have seen 
an unwholesome piece of mortality of this kind ge^i 
up, all smirk, amiability, politeness, and compla- 
cency, to refute, in the most urbane manner, some 
truism lineally descended from Shem, Ham, or 
Japhet, or, it may be, antediluvian, I confess I have 
felt the destructive prinoiple rising within me — I 
have acknowledged my consanguinity to Cain — I 
have — ^but no man is bound to be his own accuser. 
"Our worser thoughts heaven mend." 

Yet there are people who contend that these dens 
for the dislocation of grammar, for the maltreatment 
of metaphors, tmd the ill-usage of all tropes and 
figures whatsoever, these very debating societies, 
are not only perfectly innocuous, but positively be- 



DEBATING SOCIETIES. 27 

neficial ; that they sharpen the tongues and faculties 
of young men ; that they accustom them to view 
matters dispassionately, and examine both sides of 
a subject ; that they keep them, in some degree, 
from theatres, taverns, biUiard-tables, and other im- 
moralities ; and that, moreover, they are a sort of 
preparatory schools, wherein incipient legislators 
may perfect themselves in declamation, mystifica- 
tion, equivocation, and other indispensable requisites 
for wordy war in after life. Oh misjudging fathers 
of families ! Is it more pernicious, think you, for 
your offspring to injure the coats of their stomachs 
by quaffing tumblers of brandy punch at a tavern, 
than to sully their immortal minds by nightly 
draughts of quibbles and sophistry ? Is it worse to 
play a straight hazard at a billard table, than to 
learn habitually to undervalue truth, treating her 
Hke a play-thing — a shuttlecock — to be bandied to 
and fro as suits their convenience ? Is it worse for 
them to sit in a theatre and hear the divine poetry 
of Shakspeare appropriately recited, than to be lis- 
tening to the dull speculations, or inflated bombast 
of raw juveniles ; or worse than that, perchance, 
being themselves actively engaged in damaging the 
English language, their vernacular, their respected 
maternal or mother tongue ? Is the quarrel scene 
between Brutus and Cassius less to the purpose 



28 DEBATING SOCIETIES. 

than a fiery altercation between Master Cicero Tim- 
kins and Master Demosthenes Simkins ? Answer. 
" But are these things so ?" exclaims some unsus- 
pecting, kind-hearted father, or some amiable mo- 
ther, aroused, for the first time, to a sense of the dan- 
ger of her darling child, who has recently joined one 
of those associations, and in whom she has latterly 
remarked, with sorrow of heart, unequivocal symp- 
toms of obtrusiveness in company, and a rapid deve- 
lopment of the organs of obstinacy and self-will 
Trust me, dear madam, they are, and must of 
necessity be so. I am not trifling with you. I am 
no giddy boy, writing for a thimble-full of local 
notoriety, but am myself a parent (of some six 
weeks standing); and though of the more obtuse 
(where feeling is concerned) or masculine gender, 
know how to enter into a fond mother's fears on 
such an occasion. Trust me, where one boy is 
benefited by such societies, hundreds are injured 
in their intellects, their morals, or their tempers. 
AVhere one over-bashful youth is inoculated with 
a little becoming self-possession, hundreds acquire a 
degree of audacity, repulsive even in those who 
have arrived at whiskers, but perfectly shocking in 
persons of tender years ; who, by the yet unstiffened 
down upon their cheeks and chins, are reasonably 
expected to be patterns of meekness and. acquies- 
cence. 



DEBATING SOCIETIES. 29 

But this is only a portion of the evils produced 
by such unwholesome hotbeds for the forcing of 
the intellect. The other natural consequences are 
overweening pride, inflated notions of self, together 
with contradictious, acrimonious, disputative habits, 
which irresistibly prompt the unhappy possessors to 
injure their friends, neighbors and acquaintance, by 
committing, as it were, moral assaults upon them ; 
waylaying and deluding them, unawares, into out- 
of-the-way controversies, knocking them down with 
arguments or quotations, and then rifling them of 
their quietude and peace of mind, and otherwise 
maltreating and abusing them. Is such conduct 
commendable ? Is it decent ? My dear madam, if 
you would not have your son become a piece of un- 
mixed impertinence — an unamiability — a flatulen- 
cy — an after-dinner annoyance and a tea-table curse, 
keep him away from debating societies. 

After this affecting appeal, I think I see you turn 
to your first-born, and, with tears in your eyes, ex- 
claim— 

"Oh, Ralph Nicholas, my love, go no more to 
that place — it will not, and it cannot come to good.'' 

Madam, hand this lucubration across the table to 
him, and conviction will stare him in the face ; he 
will yet be saved ; and in the words of some great 
moralist, " I will not have written altogether in vain." 

3* 



30 DEBATING SOCIETIES. 

" But to take," as the newspapers say, " a more 
enlarged and comprehensive view of the subject." 
These abominations are spreading themselves with 
awful rapidity over every section of the country. 
In cities they abound, and are of every degree, from 
bad to execrable. But worse than this : even in 
the most (apparently) calm and sequestered villages 
— sanctuaries for retirement and contemplation and 
solemn thoughts — the demon of debate has esta- 
blished a president's chair ; and the propounding 
and discussion of questions are carried on by the 
rustics with a vigor and pertinacity that argue any 
thing but well for the peace and quiet of the neigh- 
borhood. Really, unless some remedial measures 
be adopted, habitual disputation may become ge- 
neral, and no man be safe. But what chiefly 
alarms me, who partly believe in the transmission 
of peculiar qualities of mind, as well as body, from 
generation to generation, is, that this disease — this 
moral blotch of wrangling and debating, becomes 
rooted in the system ; that what in our children is 
only an acquired habit, may, in their children, and 
their children's children, be a natural propensity! 
I will be gathered to my fathers long ere that, and 
therefore, cannot be supposed to be influenced by 
any personal feeling in speaking thus ; but, good 
heavens ! should it become hereditary ! Then, in- 



DEBATING SOCIETIES. 31 

deed, may the peaceable and well-disposed of after- 
years — tliose who have escaped the taint — be em- 
phatically said to have "fallen on evil days," and 
then will they exclaim, in the agony of their out- 
raged quietj 

" Oh, for a lodge in some vast wilderness ! 
Some boundless contiguity of shade !" 

But, perhaps, I am mournfully anticipative. Pro- 
vidence grant it may be so. But no means should 
be left untried to check the evil. 

I will apostrophize ; perchance it may act as a 
dissuasive. 

Oh, tender, callow youth, of sixteen and upwards, 
listen ! A voice from the olden time, even that of 
the wisest among men, calleth unto thee — "my 
son, get wisdom, and with all thy getting get un- 
derstanding ;" and that thou may'st do so, discoun- 
tenance those talking, turbulent, truculent associa- 
tions for the effusion of the froth and scum of 
oratory ; eschew hot and bitter disputation — seek 
not for truth amid wrangles, and quibbles, and dis- 
ingenuous paradoxes — consort not with such as 
deal in them ; but hie thee to thy silent chamber 
and choose thy companions from the immortalsj 
from the demigods of thy " land's language." Look 
now, in this small room, what a goodly company 
hast thou assembled around thee. What a congre 



32 DEBATING SOCIETIES. 

gation af witSj sages, poets, and philosophers; and 
all willing to be known to th}^ poor self. Insignifi- 
cant as thou art, how farnlHar may'st thou be with 
Shakspeare, if it so please thee ! John Milton Avill 
not refuse thy acquaintance. Here is Swift, too, 
divested of his rudeness ; and Pope of his pettish- 
ness ; and " glorious John ;" and Ben • Jonson and 
Sam Johnson, who take no offence whatever at the 
unceremonious abbreviation of their baptismal cog- 
nomens. If you wish to la^gh, here are Butler 
and Smollett, two right pleasant fellows, who will 
speedily furnish you with an occasion ; if you are 
more attuned unto the "melting mood," here are 
Gray and GoUins similarly disposed; and if you 
are so unreasonable as to desire to laugh and cry 
in the same breath, you can be accommodated, for 
here is Laurence Sterne ; and here, tod, are witty 
Farquhar, and wittier Congreve; and kindly- 
hearted Ohver Goldsmith ; and meek, melanchohus 
Cowper ; and blithe, honest, ill-used Robie Burns ; 
and I know not how many more true-hearted, 
sound -headed fellows, "merry and wise,'' such as 
the " antique Raman" or the Greek, or all that lived 
before the days of " good dueen Bess," never had 
the honor of keeping company with. If you are 
ambitious of an acquaintance with the leading lite- 
rary characters of your own times, here are Scott 



DEBATING SOCIETIES. 33 

Rogers, Campbell, Moore, (fee. ready to waive the 
ceremony of a formal introduction in your favor. 

Are all these advantages — these opportunities of 
" keeping the best of company," to be lightly slight- 
ed ? Neglect them, and you will walk through the 
world an idealess biped ; cultivate them, and when 
you go forth amid the mass of mortals, you will 
see with eyes that they see not with, and hear with 
ears that they hear not with ; and, whether in the 
crowded city or the solitary plain, the glittering ball- 
room or the smoky cabin ; amid the tumult of soci- 
ety or the silence of nature, you will, at all times, 
and on all occasions, have it in your power to reap 



" The harvest of a quiet eye, 
That broods on its own heart !" 



RESPECTABILITY. 

Respectability! Mysterious word! indefinite 
term ! phantom ! Who will presume to say autho- 
ritatively what thou art ? What metaphysician or 
mental chemist will analyze thee, and expound to 
the world the curious substance or essence of which 
thou art composed ? Where is the lexicographer 
gifted with powers, subtle and fine as the spider's 
thread, to define thee accurately, satisfactorily, so 
that the general voice shall cry aloud, " that is the 
meaning of the word ;" and every individual whisper 
to his neighbor, "that was my meaning." As for 
the explanations of the existing race of dictionaries, 
they are mere evasions of the question. 

About the boldest and most decided opinion con- 
cerning this particle of the English language that I 
am acquainted with, was that given by a witness in 
a swindling transaction, who, on being asked by 
the judge his reason for affirming that the defendant 
was a respectable man, replied, "that he kept a 
gig." There is something in the unhesitating and 



RESPECTABILITY. 35 

undoubting confidence of this answer, that carries 
weight with it. The witness was well acquainted 
with the defendant's moral obliquities ; he knew 
that he had long been worthy the attention of the 
laws of his country ; he knew, moreover, that he 
was only enabled to maintain this two-wheeled 
vehicle by a constant infringement of the right of 
meum and tuum ; he knew, in short, that he was 
rich by good management and unhanged by good 
luck ; but still, there was no getting over the simple 
fact — he kept his gig ; and so long as he did keep 
it, nothing could impugn his respectability in the 
mind of the witness. Yet, before we unthinkingly 
laugh at this man's tenacious adherence to his beau 
ideal of respectability, let us cautiously examine our 
own thoughts on the subject. A gig is respectable, 
A curricle may be dashing — a phaeton stylish — a 
carriage genteel, lofty, magnificent — but a gig is 
respectable par excellence. Yet, of itself, and in- 
dependent of other circumstances, it does not wholly 
and safely constitute respectability, and here lies 
the difficulty. It is not all in all — " there's the rub," 
or the question might be settled. Besides, its con- 
dition must be looked to. It may be badly lined, 
and worse painted ; the shafts and wheels may be 
in ill-condition ; it may, in fact, have a disreputa- 
ble appearance rather than otherwise; it may be 



30 RESPECTABILITY. 

second-handed. All these apparently trivial, but in 
reality essential circumstances, are to be taken into 
account before we can definitively pronounce upon 
the respectability of the possessor ; and it behoves 
us to be cautious ; for, to a nice mind, ardently en- 
gaged in the pursuit of truth, a hair-breadth dis- 
tinction is found, at times, more obstinately irrecon- 
cileable than a more manifest discrepancy. 

Respectability ! All-pervading power ! hke Hght 
and life, thou art everywhere ; or, at the least, 
wherever civilization is, there art thou to be found, 
despotically ruling the minds of men of every grade 
and station, from the doctor to the dustman — from 
the lawyer to the laborer. But of all the devotees, 
none, I think, worship thee with the fervor- — ^thc 
intenseness of shopkeepers and small tradesmen. 
Thou art their idol — ^their oracle ! They consult 
thee in all they do or say, or in whatever in any 
shape appertains to them. Thou art ever upper- 
most in their thoughts, and there is no sacrifice too 
great for them to make — no deprivation too severe 
for them to endure, rather than to be banished 
either in reality, or in the opinion of the world, 
from thy presence. But though this race of peo- 
ple are more peculiarly thine own, millions of others 
put in their claim of kindred to thee on some trivial 
pretext or other. Thou hast more distant relations 



RESPECTABILITY. 37 

than a Scotchman likely to do well in the world, 
even though his name be Campbell. And it is cu- 
rious to mark the different ways in which thy mul- 
titudinous kith and kin infer a connection. Some 
are respectable by descent, some by dress, some by 
the situation of the dwellings in which they have 
temporarily located themselves. A man in very 
low circumstances, if he has no better claim, is 
consanguineous on the strength of a hat with a 
brim, or a stocking without a hole — " two precious 
items in a poor man's eye ;" the spruce mechanic's 
dapper coat, or his wife's silk gown, leave no doubt 
in his own eyes at least, how closely he is allied ; 
the small tradesman's snug house, tiny flower-spot 
before the door, and neat green railings, distinctly 
mark him for thine own ; while the more aristo- 
cratical storekeeper in the wholesale or large retail 
way, getting above business, successful ship-brokers, 
cotton-speculators, lottery-office keepers, and other 
anomalies, forgetful of all thou hast done for them, 
look above thee, and creep into the back ranks of 
gentility and fashion, where they remain neither 
fish nor flesh — genteel in their own estimation, 
simply respectable in that of their neighbors. 

Some men neglect their personal appearance, and 
concentrate their claims to respectability in a brass 
knocker, a plate with their name engraved thereon, 

VOL. I. 4 



38 RESPECTABILITY. 

Venetian blinds, or any other pretty additament to 
their domiciles ; others are respectable by virtue of 
their connexions ; others by going to the private 
boxes at the theatre ; others by a pew next the par- 
son at church ; others by the people they visit ; 
others by having every thing in season. Yet, dif- 
ficult as it is for the mind of man to comprehend all 
these things, and to decide properly and justly, the 
women, taking advantage of their superior powers 
of penetration, and delicacy of discrimination, divide 
and subdivide respectability as easily as quick- 
silver. They have their " respectable sort of people 
— very respectable — highly respectable — extremely 
respectable-— mo5^ respectable," which makes the 
thing about as difficult to understand or explain, 
as political economy or electro-magnetism. Indeed, 
l^ere are some men, otherwise not deficient in in- 
tellect, who never have even a glimmering of light 
upon the subject. Think of the more than Egyp- 
tian darkness of Robert Burns, for instance^ — mark 
his heterodoxies, 

" What though on hamely fare we dine, 
Wear hodden gray and a' that, 
Gie fools their silk, and knaves their wine, 
A man's a man for a' that. " 

No, sir, he is not a man ; he is only a poor devil. 
Or, grant that he is so by courtesy, what is a man 



RESPECTABILITY. 3^ 

in these times, unless he is respectable according to 
some of the floating laws and regulations on the 
subject? " Oh, better had he ne'er been born !" for, 
as the Persian sage justly remarketh — " he shall 
drink of the waters of bitterness all the days of his 
hfe, and his bread shall be as ashes in his mouth ; 
his face shall be near unto the earth, and he shall 
be so small that his friends will look over his head 
and see him not, even though the day be hght — 
and his shadow shall be less than the shadow of a 
dog, or of a Russian, whom God destroy !" 

Respectability is in and over all things. There 
are respectable substances to eat, and drink, and 
wear ; there are respectable towns and streets and 
situations — for men and houses. There is a shade 
of respectability in colors. A black coat is more 
respectable than a brown one — a white handker- 
chief decidedly more so than a red one. Why this 
is we cannot tell, we only know that it is so. 

One of the immutable laws of nature is, that 
doctors and lawyers shall wear black coats and 
white handkerchiefs, and perhaps to this, in a large 
degree, is owing the respectability which is so ge- 
nerally conceded to those bodies. I speak not here 
of lawyerlings and doctorhngs — boys with scarcely 
a tinge of their profession, who are injudiciously 
abandoned in those matters to their own weak 



40 RESPECTABILITY. 

judgments and perverted tastes, and who conse- 
quently go abroad in josephean garments " of many 
colors," but of full-grown responsible men of law 
and physic. Who would trust a life or a lawsuit 
of any importance to one of either profession in a 
pea-green coat, fancy waistcoat, and colored hand- 
kerchief? the idea is preposterous. There is more 
in those black and white habiUments than the un- 
thinking dream of 



A FEW OF THE INCONVENIENCES OF SEEING 
SHAKSPEARE ACTED. 

In the mass of miscellaneous reading that is con- 
stantly meeting the eye and passing from the me- 
mory, you occasionally meet with a remark or odd 
saying of an adhesive quality — like a burr " it will 
stick." It is long ago since the following came in 
my way ; so long, indeed, that I have forgotten the 
precise form of words in which the meaning was 
couched, but the purport of the sentence was — 
" that Shakspeare lost by representation in the same 
proportion that others gained by it ; — that the one 
was like a spruce apprentice set off by his Sunday 
clothes — the other Uke Apollo tricked out by a tai- 
lor." I dare say the same thought has struck many 
a man after reading or seeing Shakspeare, and been 
illustrated by many men in many modes before 
this time ; still, let the reapers and gleaners go ever 
so carefully over the field, there are always some 
few stray ears to be picked up by a straggler- 
patches, remnants of the bounteous harvest that 

4* 



42 INCONVENIENCES OF SEEING 

has already been gathered in by the first in the 
field. Nevertheless, that is no good reason why a 
poor plodder in the stubble should be discouraged. 
Let him gather together as he best may what others 
have passed by, and see that it be sound and whole- 
some — neither blighted nor mildewed ; let those 
laugh that have little better to do at his unostenta- 
tious handful. 

In speaking of the inconveniences of seeing 
Shakspeare acted, let us pass by, in quiet resigna- 
tion, the more purely imaginative of his plays — his 
" Tempest," and " Midsummer Night's Dream." 
These wild and delicate pieces of fancy were never 
intended for the hard handling and business calcu- 
lations of stage managers and their underlings. A 
summer's day would be all too short to detail the 
strange wrong, the mutilation, the degradation they 
suffer on the stage. Their delicious poetry should 
be fw the hours of privacy alone ; and even then, 
a man should not trust himself to read some of the 
passages in the latter play (or dream) aloud ; they 
are of too fine a texture for the harsh human voice, 
and should be imbibed and conveyed to the senses 
by the eye alone. But to hear them in a theatre ! 
To have them remorselessly bellowed forth from 
the foot-lamps by the lumps of clay who do 
the scavenger work of the drama, is absolutely 



SHAKSPEARE ACTED. 43 

terrible ! It is worse than assassinating Handel or 
Mozart with a bagpipe, or playing Hadyn's sym- 
phonies on a hurdy-gurdy ! And yet, what will 
not mortals attempt ? The most of us have actually 
heard a stage Bottom issue such directions as these 
to some silly, fat, flobby child in white or green — 
" Monsieur Cobweb ; good monsieur, get your wea- 
pons in your hand, and kill me a red-hipped hum- 
ble bee on the top of a thistle ; and good monsieur, 
bring me the honey-bag. Do not fret yourself too 
much in the action, monsieur ; and good monsieur, 
have a care that the honey-bag break not ; I would 
be loth to have you overflown with a honey-bag, 
signior ;" while Moth, Peas-blossom, Mustard-seed, 
and the other elves who — 

" Creep into acorn cups and hide them there," 

have been represented by the brothers and sisters 
of Cobweb, the juvenile produce and property of 
some industrious matron connected with the esta- 
blishment. This is as bad as Snout, the joiner, 
representing the wall. And with all our vaunted 
improvements in stage decoration, how much worse 
otr was the poor Athenian company for their lion, 
and wall, and moonshine, than the unfortunate 
modern scene-painter or property-man, who is called 
upon by the text to furnish a bank as per order? 



44 INCONVENIENCES OF SEEING 

" 1 know a bank whereon the wild thyme blows. 
Where ox-lips and the nodding riolet grows ; 
Quite over-canopied with lush woodbine, 
With sweet musk roses and with eglantine ; 
There sleeps Titania." 

No ! there are scenes and materials about the 
" Tempest" which may, in some sUght degree^ ex- 
cuse its introduction on the stage, and atone for the 
manifold barbarities committed upon it when there; 
but never let the " Midsummer Night's Dream" — 
that fine film — that pure abstraction — that delicate 
fret-work of an ethereal imagination, have a tangi- 
ble existence. 

Let us pass to the common acting plays — Mac- 
beth. You are sitting by the fire on a winter's 
evening, " wrapped" in the perusal of this master- 
piece of nature's masterpiece, preparatory to visiting 
the theatre to see it played. In your mind's eye you 
perceive the " blasted heath," the scene of Macbeth's 
temptation, sterile and wild, covered with masses of 
primeval and " herbless granite," and untenanted 
save by the lonely plover or shy and solitary moor- 
cock. Beside some rude cairn are clustered the 
weird sisters, " posters of the sea and land," re- 
counting their exploits, and holding devihsh con- 
sultation ; in the distance is the army of Macbeth. 
There is a bleak and gloomy grandeur in the pic- 
ture you have drawn, and you hasten to the theatre 



SHAKSPEARE ACTED. 45 

to have it realized. Does not your enthusiasm re- 
ceive a shock ? Before you is some old, confined 
'* wood-scene" used on all occasions, with Macbeth 
and Banquo, the three beldames, and divers ill- 
drilled supernumeraries huddled together in most 
unseemly proximity ; while the hags, " so wither'd 
and so wild in their attire," are generally repre- 
sented (for what reason managers only know) by 
three low comedians, for the most part hearty, 
plump, oleaginous personages, with whom all sorts 
of odd, out-of-the-way associations are connected, 
in patched red and tartan petticoats, and stationed 
in the full glare of the gas-lamps ! True, some of 
this cannot be remedied ; but much of it might, 
were a tithe part of the money and attention di- 
rected towards it that is wasted on some gaud or 
pantomime ; and much that is now vulgar, com- 
mon-place and ridiculous, might, by the aid of a 
little liberality and common-sense, be rendered 
grand and impressive. But the managers think 
that Shakspeare may be used and abused after any 
fashion ; that he has stamina for any thing ; and 
they think right, though they act wrong. " Scenery, 
machinery, dresses and decorations," however, viay 
be amended, " that's comfort, yet ;" but alas ! what 
mental millwright — what skilful machinist, will 
put in order and wind up the talking machines thM 



46 INCONVENIENCES OF SEEING 

" do" the subordinate parts about the theatre to the 
true Shaksperian pitch, and set them a-going for 
the night ! Is the schoolmaster yet abroad ordained 
to shed a ray of hght upon their benighted under- 
standings concerning the meaning of the author, 
or make them sensible of the simple but important 
fact, that blank verse is not prose, and ought to be 
spoken differently? Here it is where our great 
dramatic poet principally suffers. The exuberant 
genius of Shakspeare could not stoop to petty calcu- 
lations. It never entered into his thoughts what 
imimaginative pieces of mortality would; in after 
times, give utterance to the glorious poetry that is 
scattered indiscriminately over his pages. Small 
occasion had he to play the niggard, and carefully 
apportion out his sweet fancies and rare conceits to 
those who would be hkely to give the most effect 
in the representation; and hence it is that the 
" Goodmen Dulls" of the theatre — the honest plod- 
ding gentlemen with small salaries and correspond- 
ing capacities, who, in other authors, have language 
admirably adapted to their modes of thinking and 
expression put into their mouths, have frequently, 
when doing their work in subordinate characters in 
Shakspeare, to utter passages redolent with beauty, 
which they do in a way that very satisfactorily 
shows these " imperfect speakers" have little occa- 



SHAKSPEARE ACTED. 47 

sioii to thank the gods for having made them '' po- 
etical." 

Of all Shakspeare's characters there are not any 
so systematically ill-used as these same witches in 
Macbeth. It has been thought by many who 
know something of the matter, that there are a wild- 
ness and sublimity in the character and attributes 
of those malignant hags, that are perfectly inap- 
proachable by any one below Shakspeare's calibre. 
And, be it noted, they are not only of wondrous 
import of themselves, but the mainspring of all the 
principal events in the great drama to which they 
belong. The talent and intellect of the greatest 
ornaments the stage has produced, would not be 
misapplied in endeavoring to give an adequate 
idea of these strange and fantastical creations. Yet 
what are they at present ? Three old women, ab- 
solute objects of mockery and laughter to the au- 
dience. Nay, this seems, in some degree, to be now 
their legitimate purpose ; for it is not unfrequently 
the case, that when the spectators are more deco- 
rous than usual, some of the witches, by a grotesque 
action or ridiculous intonation, appeal to them for 
the customary tribute — a hearty laugh ! But it is 
not always the actors who are in fault. There is 
one thing which has always especially moved my 
admiration. It is the marvellous small provocative 



48 INCONVENIENCES OF SEEING 

ft 

to laughter which people require when congregated 
together in large bodies, and when it is quite clear 
they should do any earthly thing rather than laugh. 
Here, for instance, where the most solemn attention 
and breathless anxiety should pervade the house — 

First Witch. — Look what I have ! 
Second Witch. — Show me ! show me ! 
Third Witch. — Here I have a pilot's thumb 

Wreck'd as he did homeward come. 
Second Witch. — A. drum! a drum! Macbeth doth come. 

Upon this hint, if it be a favorite actor that is ex- 
pected, a universal uproar or ro2^? commences, which 
lasts until Macbeth comes swaggering and bowing 
down the stage. If it be not any great or novel 
favorite that personates the hero, the scene proceeds 
in the following lively manner : 

TViird Witch. — The weird sisters, hand in hand,. 
Posters of the sea and land, 
Thus do go about, about. 
Thrice to thine. 

Here the first witch, as a part of the incantation, 
bows or nods her head thrice, and a general smile 
instantly suffuses the faces of a majority of those 
present, in boxes, pit, and gallery, which indispu- 
tably proves that nodding the head thrice is essen- 
tially and exquisitely comic. The second witch 
continues " and thrice to thine," suiting the action 



SHAKSFEARE ACTED, 49 

to the word, upon which a general titter ensues. 
But when the third witch, in obedience to the Une, 
" and thrice again to make up nine," nods thrice 
more, the great merriment of the audience can no 
longer be contained, and " Peace ! the charm's 
wound up," is uttered amid a roar of laughter. " By 
day and night, but this is wondrous strange." 
Certes, it would be a merry treat for Voltaire, the 
blasphemer of Shakspeare, to see many parts of 
Macbeth acted. 

On the stage, in the garbled selection designated 
Richard III. how much do we miss, or rather, what 
a one-sided view is presented to us of the hero. 
There is no relief in the character, it is scarcely 
Shaksperian, for it is unmixed evil. All the darker 
shades are deepened, and brought prominently for- 
ward : and the lighter and more agreeable tints 
sedulously excluded from the picture. We have 
the " hunchback," the " bottled spider," the subtle 
tyrant, the hypocrite, and the murderer, at full 
length ; but we miss the lively animated Richard, 
the blunt, quick-witted soldier, the accomplished 
courtier, the " princely Gloster," such as he is to be 
found in Shakspeare. We miss all his bitter, though 
pleasant and not altogether unmerited gibes and 
jeers at King Edward, his wife, and her relations — 

VOL. I. 5 



50 INCONVENIENCES OF SEEING 

«' We speak no treason, man ; we say, the king 
Is wise and virtuous ; and his noble queen 
Well struck in years ; fair, and not jealous :— 
We say that Shore's wife hath a preltx,foot, 
A cherry lip, 

A bonny eye, a passing pleasing tongue ; 
And the queen's kindred are made gentlefolks : 
How say you, sir ; can you deny all this ?" 

and twenty other similar passages, and we lose that 
respect for him which, maugre his bad qualities, 
his energy, his fiery courage, his constancy, gene- 
ralship, and intellectual superiority to those around 
him, extort from us through the three parts of 
Henry the Sixth. During the long and bloody 
wars of the roses, he is almost the only prominent 
character who is not at the same time as weak as 
wicked. 

But of all the acting plays. King Lear undoubt- 
edly suffers most. Sins of omission and commis- 
sion are here too numerous to be pointed out. 
There is a radical unfitness too, in the exposure of 
the infirmity and imbecility of the aged monarch 
through five long acts, that it is scarcely possible 
for genius, even of the highest order, to overcome. 
The pity produced by an exhibition of physical decay 
for any lengthened period, is nearly allied to con- 
tempt ; and contempt is by no means the feeling 
with which either the mental or bodily weakness 
of Lear ousrht to be regarded. In the closet, we 



SHAKSPEARE ACTED. 51 

think of him with natural reverence, as " a poor, 
despised, weak, and infirm old man," " fourscore 
and upwards:" on the stage, the repulsive infiimi- 
ties attendant on this condition, — shaking, cough- ' 
ing, tottering ; or worse than that, the awkward 
imitations of them by the actor, who is constantly 
obtruding them on us to show his kno\vIedge of, 
and attention to, the part, repel our sympathies. 
Besides, the madness of Lear is too subtle and re- 
fined, almost too sacred, for the stage. The su- 
perhuman touches of pathos and passion are too 
exquisitely fine and delicate for the atmosphere of 
a theatre. We get too deeply interested to endure 
the thought that it is but counterfeit " well-painted 
passion" we are looking on ; and, in the excited 
state of our feelings, applause becomes imperti- 
nence, and the other noises of a playhouse loath- 
some. Whenever other writers for the stage have 
failed, it has been from lack of means — from an 
inability to conceive or express what the passion or 
situation required ; but Shakspeare has done more 
than succeed ; in the exercise of his immortal pow- 
ers, he has at times risen to a pitch that has ren- 
dered it impossible for mortals of more hmited facul- 
ties, even in their happiest moments of inspiration , 
to give other than a poor and imperfect illustration 
of his meaning. 'Of all his characters, this is most 



52 INCONVENIENCES OF SEEING 

conspicuous in Lear. In these latter days, no man, 
save Kean, has succeeded in giving even a faint 
idea of the craz'd monarch ; all other attempts have 
^been little better than pitiable. I do not say this 
dictatorially. There are many, I doubt not, better 
qualified to judge than myself, who think differently. 
I quarrel with no man's opinion, but claim the right 
of expressing and retaining my own. Those who 
are much in the habit of attending the theatre, get 
inured to dramatic butchery of all sorts, and can sit 
and see, even with a smile on their countenance, 
Othello, Richard, Hamlet, Macbeth, and other of 
their acquaintance, "savagely slaughtered j" but 
even the most seared and case-hardened play-goer 
must feel that an ill-judged attempt in Lear is little 
better than profanation. 

I am by no means contending that Lear should 
never be played, but have only been endeavoring 
to point out some of the difficulties and disadvan- 
tages attendant thereon : yet I had almost forgotten 
the principal drawback. On the stage, the Fool^ 
(so called) the best and wisest, if not the wittiest, 
of Shakspeare's fools, is altogether omitted. All his 
pithy sayings— his scraps of doggerel, with a deep 
meaning in them—- his shrewd commentaries on 
the folly of the king, and the ingratitude of his 
daughters— all gone " at one fell swoop." We miss 



SHAKSPEARE ACTED. 53 

him sadly, for he is not only the most sensible, 
but best hearted of fools; and there is something 
peculiarly touching in his unflinching adherence to 
the fortunes of his master, at the same time that he 
has judgment to see his interest lies the other way, 
etna shrewdness to give such keen and bitter coun- 
sel as this for the desertion of fallen greatness — 
" Let go thy hold when a great wheel runs down 
a hill, lest it break thy neck with following it ; 
but the great one that goes up the hill, let him 
draw thee after. When a wise man gives thee bet- 
ter counsel, give me mine again. I would have 
none but knaves follow it, since a fool gives it." 
He seems too, to have a quicker insight than any 
around as to " how the Avorld wags ;'' for when 
Kent asks, 

" How chance the king comes with so small a train ?" 

he chides his dullness of perception by answering, 
" An thou hadst been put ill the stocks for asking 
that question, thou hadst well deserved it." In the 
last extremity, when the poor monarch is " unhou- 
sel'd," and exposed to all the fury of the elements, 
we still hear of poor Motley — 

Kent. — But who is with him ? 
Gent. — None but the Fool ; who labors to outjest 
His heartfelt injuries. 

What a picture is presented to the imagination by 

5* 



54 INCONVENIENCES, ETC. 

these few words — " none but the fool" of fallen 
greatness on the one hand, and unswerving" fidelity 
on the other. It is gratifying to know that this 
affection is at least reciprocated ; for Lear, even 
after his " wits begin to turn," exclaims — 

" Poor fool and knave ! I have one part in my heart 
That's sorry yet for thee !" 

But we might pursue this subject to "the crack 
of doom ;" or at least, to speak more prosaically and 
sensibly, we might continue it to a most tiresome 
and unreasonable length. The gist of what we 
have been endeavoring to show, is, — not that 
Shakspeare should be played less, but that he 
should be read more ; to point out to those who 
are contented to become acquainted with him for 
the most part through the medium of the stage; 
how much they lose by such a procedure ; and to 
prove that some of his plays, from their high and 
peculiar nature, are fitted for the closet alone ; and 
to expose a few of the drawbacks upon the pleasure 
of seeing him acted, occasioned by the carelessness 
or incapability of those who have the charge of 
dramatic entertainments. 



MONEY. 

Alas ! what a thing is Poverty 
Among the fallen on evil days : 
'Tis crime, and fear, and infamy, 
And houseless want ; in frozen ways 
Wandering ungarmented ; and pain. 
And worse than all, that inward stain, 
Foul self-contempt, which drowns in sneers 
Youth's starlight smile, and makes its tears 
First like hot gall, then dry for ever ? 

" Riches are not happiness," say many old prosei a? 
generally " well-to-do" in the world — granted ; nei- 
ther is Poverty directly and absolutely misery ; but 
if she be not, she is near akin — she is " mother of 
miseries," and has, in truth, as swarming and ill- 
favored a progeny, of all shapes and sizes, as can 
well be conceived, from full-grown evils down to 
small, petty nuisances. As it often happens, the 
junior portion of her offspring are the worst to be 
endured. They have not the deadly stings and 
matured malignancy of the elder evils, but are more 
fretful, teazing, irritating, and annoying ; and are 
that set of imps that are perpetually pestering men 



56 MONEY. 

in middling circumstances, or rather, on the borders 
or confines thereof, but whom an increasing defi- 
ciency of, and an increasing necessity for, the cir- 
culating medium, is gradually dragging down to 
that class of " despisable vagabonds," as Cooper's 
housekeeper calls them — the poor. Be not afraid, 
ye men of millions, am not about to make any 
drafts upon your sympathy, I am not about to at- 
tempt to draw, a-la-Ba?iim, any fearful, loathsome, 
haggard picture of poverty and its effects. Such 
pictures do little good, and much harm. They 
have the tendency to sere and render callous the 
feelings rather than excite pity, or open the 
well-springs of divine charity. Besides, the super- 
lative is not my line ; the positive or compara- 
tive is quite high or low enough for one who neither 
deals in celestial bliss nor ineffable w^oe, but am con- 
tent to peddle in the small ware of mere human 
troubles and inconveniences. 

To want money is to want " honor, love, obe- 
dience, troops of friends ;" it is to want respect and 
sympathy, and the ordinary courtesies of society, 
besides, occasionally, victuals. The possession or 
non-possession of it makes the difference whether 
life has to be an enjoyment or a task ; whether it 
has to be a walk over a smooth, verdant lawn, 
amid fragrant flowers, and aromatic shrubs, and 



MONEY. 57 

all things that minister pleasure to the senses ; or 
a wearisome up-hill jomney through thorns and 
briars, and other disgracious impediments. It makes 
the difference whether you have to go bounding 
exultingly along like the free, full-blooded courser, 
or wend your way wearily and slow like the laden 
and despised pack-horse. 

To want money, in a high state of civilization, 
is to be a kind of slave ; it is, at least, to be depen- 
dent on the whims and caprices of others, instead 
of indulging in all the pleasant eccentricities or ori- 
ginalities to which your temperament may prompt 
you ; it is to have to rise soon when you wish to lie 
late, and go to bed early in order to be enabled so 
to do } it is to have to eat indiscriminate provender, 
Instead of making a judicious selection from the 
^' delicious juices of meats and fishes ;" it is to have 
to live in unwholesome and anti-respectable neigh- 
borhoods, and mix in daily communion with peo- 
ple whose ways are not your ways ; it is to be a 
drudge, a hack, a machine, worked for the profit 
and advantage of others until the springs are 
broken ; it is to be omitted in family celebrations, 
and roam about invitationless at Christmas ; it is 
to have to put up with equivocal nods and recogni- 
tions in the streets — to have your friends look into 
print-shop windows as you approach, and suddenly 



58 MONEY. 

bring their admiration of the engraver's skill to a 
period as soon as you have passed by ; it is to feel 
all delicate sensibilities, all free generous feelings, all 
ardent and aspiring thoughts checked and crushed 
within you by a petty but overbearing necessity ; it is 
to have to suffer at once the greatest misfortunes and 
the most contemptible vexations ; to have family 
affections and social friendships uprooted and de- 
stroyed, and to be obliged to be uncomfortably care- 
ful of coats, hats, and other habiliments. It is to 
live " a man forbid ;" or it is to become an exile 
from your native land — an outcast, a wanderer in 
foreign and unhealthy climes, hunting for the yel- 
low indispensable, until 3^ou are of the color of the 
metal you are in quest of; until the temper becomes 
"soured, the feelings deadened, the heart indurated, 
and the liver in an improper state. How beauti- 
fully has Leyden portrayed his own fate and feel- 
ings, and those of thousands of others, in that pure 
gem of poetry, the " Address to an Indian Gold 
Coin"— 

" For thee — for thee, vile yellow slave ! 

1 left a heart that lov'd me true ; 
I cross'd the tedious ocean v^'ave, 

To roam in climes unkind and new ; 

The cold wind of the stranger blew 

Chill o-n my wither'd heart — the grave, 
j Dark and untimel}', met my view 

And all for thee I vile yellow slave !" 



MONEY. 59 

To lack money is to lack a passport or admission 
ticket into the pleasant places of God's earth — to 
much that is glorious and wonderful in nature, and 
nearly all that is rare, and curious, and enchanting, 
in art ; or if you do travel about in a small way, it 
is to have that most miserable, rascally, intrusive, 
and disagreeable of all traveling companions — eco- 
nomy, yoked to you ; to be under a continual re- 
straint from his presence; to feel unable to give 
your mind cheerfully and freely up to the scene 
before you ; and in the contemplation of a magni- 
cent view, or a piece of hoar antiquity, to have the 
wretch whisper in your ear the probable cost of your 
pleasurable sensations ; it is to have a continual 
contest carried on in your sensorium between plea- 
sure and prudence ; it is to submit to small incon- 
veniences and petty insults at inns for the accom- 
modation of travelers, where, above all places on 
earth, the men of money shine out with the most 
resplendent glory, and the unmonied become the 
most truly insignificant ; it is, in fact, to have all 
your enjoyments diminished and annoyances ag- 
gravated ; to have pleasure almost transmuted into 
pain, or at least, to have " such shadow of vexation* 
thrown over it as materially to change its complex- 
ion ; and when all is over — journey done and ex- 
penses paid — it is to feel a sort of mean remorse 



60 - MONEY, 

as you reckon up your past expenditure, and ponder 
over the most probable remedial ways and means 
for the future. 

The two things most difficult of discovery, next 
to the passage round the north pole, are talent in 
a poor man and dullness in a rich one ; therefore, 
to want money, is to want wit, humor, eloquence, in 
fact capacity of every kind, or, at the best, if they be 
not altogether denied, to have such a duty levied 
upon them — such an oppressive drawback — that 
the rich man with inferior wares, is able to beat the 
poor one whenever they come into competition. 
For instance, the most casual observer of men and 
manners must have noticed that in company a joke 
from a man of 5000/. per annum, elicits more admi- 
ration, and produces infinitely more hilarity and 
good humor, than ten equally good from a man 
worth 500Z. Oh ! it is perfectly wonderful the 
raciness and point that an abundance of temporali- 
ties impart to a rather dull saying. Besides, a jest 
from a man in the receipt of a contemptible income, 
by some strange fatality invariably changes its na- 
ture, and becomes little better than sheer imperti- 
nence. It is that sort of thing which grave gentle- 
men and prudent matrons designate by the word 
" unbecoming." Now all this, though visible to the 
meanest capacity, might puzzle a philosopher ; he 



MONEY. 61 

would be as unable to comprehend it as he would 
the curious sympathy vvhich evidently exists be- 
tween sterling wit and superfine cloth, that mu- 
tually assist and set off each other. Many a quaint 
conceit and rare piece of pleasantry has altogether 
lost its effect and fallen pointless in consequence of 
the speaker's garments not being of that texture, or 
possessed of that freshness which is altogether desir- 
able. The moral, good reader, to be deduced from 
all this is — that you be not petulant and acrimo- 
nious because these things are so, but that, if en- 
dowed with a " money-making disposition," you 
assiduously cultivate it, and then you will not need 
care whether these things are so or not. 

The want of money too, I am inclined to think, 
produces physical changes which have not as yet 
been sufficiently noticed by the faculty. It causes 
a gradual and considerable accumulation of bile, 
which hes lurking in the system, until the inci- 
vilities of friends, or the importunities of creditors, 
cause it to become completely vitiated or inspissated : 
after which a man, especially one predisposed to 
melancholy and contemplation, looks at every thing 
on earth through a pair of yellow spectacles. The 
unhappy patient becomes saturated, body and mind 
with jaundice ; he shuns the society of his fellow 
men, buttons his coat up to his chin, pulls his hat 

VOL. I. 6 



62 MONEY. 

over his eyes, deposits his hands in the pockets of 
his small-clothes, and takes extraordinary long 
walks into the country. But even the fair face of 
nature becomes changed ; the barrenness of his 
pockets throws a corresponding sterility over the 
landscape, deducting " the glory from the grass and 
splendor from the flower." The blossoming of the 
earth is no longer pleasant to his sight, or the music 
of the merry warblers of the woods delightful to his 
ear. His "heart is out of joint," and all nature 
seems to be filled with unpleasing comparisons be- 
tween his own state and hers. He stalks about 
with lowering brow and upturned hp, an unpleasant 
discord amid the universal harmony and fitness of 
things. At this juncture, let intelHgence arrive of 
a heavy legacy left him by some appropriately de- 
funct distant relative — and lo ! the change ! It is 
as a dark cloud passing from the sun. Monsieur 
II Penseroso becomes L' Allegro in a twinkhng. He 
draws his hand from the extensive vacuum in which 
they have been dangling, takes the yellow specta- 
cles from his eyes, raises the hat from his brow, 
unbuttons his coat, and turns, with a feeling of 
leisurely enjoyment, to welcome the fresh spring 
breeze. The song of birds and the odour of flowers 
are again grateful to his senses. The rivulet tin- 
kles once more pleasantly in his ear, and the cheer- 



MONEY. 63 

fill song of the lark finds a corresponding echo in 
his own bosom. He indulges no longer in specu- 
lations on the vanity and insufficiency of things, 
but hies homeward cheerful, free, enfranchised, 
independent. He orders an approved cookery book, 
lies a bed and studies it, and marvels, in a short 
time, how melancholy ever gained a footing in this 
mighty pleasant world. Oh money, money ! — 
marvellous indeed are the changes thou canst pro- 
duce. Would that I were a bank director ! 



AN HUMBLE ADDRESS TO THE MARRIAGEABLE 
LADIES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

Note.— The following paper was suggested by seeing it repeatedly- 
stated in American papers, that Societies had been formed in dif- 
ferent parts of the Union, wherein young ladies pledged themselves to 
discourage the addresses of all young men who were known to have 
used spirituous liquors ; some excluded wine, and I think if they were 
right in the one case they were right in the other ; for whether a man 
absorbs wine or spirits in sufficient quantities to produce intoxication, 
is very immaterial. But, indeed, as all wines contain an admixture of 
spirit (more or less), they come under both the letter and spirit of the 
prohibition. 

='2dly. — Resolved, — That from this time forward we will not encou- 
rage or admit the addresses of any gentleman who shall be known 
to be in any way concerned in the consumption of ardent spirits, 
(except as a medicine.") — American Paper. 

/Imiable young ladies ! — Is this thing so ? Has 
the decree indeed irievocably gone forth, that 
throughout the United States bachelor and brandy- 
drinker shall henceforth become synonymous terms ; 
that the cup of wedded bliss shall never be quaffed 
by him who quaffs of any other cup (tea and coffee 
excepted) — that an eternal line of separation shall 
be drawn between those ancient friends, Hymen 



ADDRESS TO THE LADIES. 65 

and Bacchus — and that the nursery and the cellar 
shall never more be found conjoined under the same 
roof? What nest of malevolent spinsters, cut off 
themselves from all maternal hopes ; or what con- 
gregation of thin, dyspeptic, water-drinking youths 
has persuaded you to the adoption of this suicidal 
course, destructive alike of your own comfort and 
happiness, and the comfort and happiness of nume- 
rous worthy, hearty fellows, I am lost in conjec- 
ture. Can the holders of shares in the Manhattan 
and other water companies have any concern in 
the getting- up and promulgation of this unnatural 
resolution — this '• sharp, biting statute?" But let 
who will be concerned, I will never beheve that 
such a resolution will or can become universal, or 
ever attain to the firm texture of the laws of the 
Medes and Persians, which alter not. What ! have 
all the bright eyes, blooming cheeks, and warm 
hearts of the damosels of the western continent, to be 
in future monopolized by cold, watery, fish-blooded 
young men, incapable of a glass or two, or occa-^ 
sionally upwards ; and has all hilarity, good fellow- 
ship, decent conviviality, with their concomitants, 
toasts, songs, and sentiments, to be prohibited under 
penalty of being the sole occupant of a four-post or 
other bedstead ? My dears, you could never have 
given the thing a thought when you vowed your- 



66 ADDRESS TO THE MARRIAGEABLE 

selves members of such a cruel and barbarous asso- 
ciation. You have been led away by morbid and 
exaggerated descriptions of bloated intemperance, 
and the madness of intoxication — of neglect and 
poverty and misery — of sitting sorrowfully by the 
lonely fire, listening to the dull ticking of the 
clock, until some brute, whom you have dignified 
by the name of husband, reels homeward from his 
nightly debauch ; and these horrid fancies have 
haunted your imaginations until you have come to 
the conclusion that there is a much more intimate 
connexion between virtue and cold water than 
really exists. Trust me, a' man may drink seven 
tumblers per diem of the pure fluid, and be no 
saint ; and another may take his social glass, erijoy 
his bottle and his friend, and on high festivals get 
merry, mellow, comfortable, elevated, subhmated, or 
w^hatever the word is, without at all forfeiting his 
general claims to sobriety, or trespassing upon the 
duties of a husband or a father. And here is the 
radical defect of temperance or abstinence societies 
generally ; the line of demarcation is too strongly 
draw^n — there is no neutral ground. It is " touch 
not, taste not," or else a very undeserved oppro- 
brium (especially in small villages), is attached to 
him who either touches or tastes, thus rendering 
him careless and reckless from a sense of the seve- 



LADIES OF THE UNITED STATES. 67 

rity and injustice of the stigma attached to perhaps 
no very censurable degree of self indulgence. 
According to the homely proverb, " a man may as 
well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb ;" and he that 
gets no credit for moderation, is very apt to plunge 
into excess. 

But you, gentle ladies, have improved upon this 
unjustifiable severity. What are the fulminations 
of any body of he-creatures to your terrible Malthu- 
sian determination — your fearful resolution to put 
a stop either to the consumption of ardent spirits, or 
to any increase in the census? The legislature 
ought to look to it : the only comfort is, that rea- 
sonable doubts may be entertained of the practica- 
bility of your scheme ; for it scarcely "stands within 
the prospect of belief" that hearts will be torn asun- 
der and deep-rooted affections dissevered upon the 
discovery of the swain's having incautiously taken 
off a tumbler of brandy and water ! It is barely 
possible that you will have the firmness of nerve to 
really discard him for evermore for such a trans- 
gression, giving him mournful occasion to exclaim 
with the poet — 

" Alas ! how slight a cause may move 
Dissension between hearts that love ! 
A something light as air — a look, 

A word unkind or wrongly taken — 
Oh ! love that tempests never shook 

A glass of brandy-punch has shaken ! 



68 ADDRESS TO THE MARRIAGEABLE 

Bethink you, too, what a glorious inquisitorial sys- 
tem you will establish for the amusement of maiden 
aunts and bosom friends, who will be for ever on 
the alert to crush your schemes of happiness in the 
bud by instituting unceasing and unrelenting in- 
quiries for the purpose of establishing the important 
fact of your beloved having swallowed improper 
compounds. And what a truly original foundation 
you will lay for the exercise of the talents of the 
future native novelist, who, in copying real life, will 
doubtless frequently have to detail such scenes as 
the following : 

" Henry unexpectedly entered the room, and to 
his utter surprise and dismay found Laura literally 
steeped in tears. Her eyes, which were red with 
weeping, formed a curious contrast to the ashy pale- 
ness of her cheeks ; and, although it was long past 
the hour of dinner, she had yet her morning gown 
on, her hair was still in paper, and every thing 
about her spoke of sorrow and desolation and utter 
disregard of personal appearances. 

" Henry approached, and by a regular series of 
tender solicitations and delicate assiduities, sought 
to win from her the cause of her distress. But vain 
and fruitless were his manifold endeavors. For a 
quarter of an hour she spoke not — listened not, to him 
whose every word had heretofore been a charm — a 



LADIES OF THE UNITED STATES. 69 

spell to hang and dwell upon. At length her grief 
found vent in an audible torrent of exclamations 
and interrogatories — 

" * And can you, Henry — you who are the sole 
author of my misery, pretend ignorance? — you, 
who have blighted all my young hopes of happi- 
ness ; — you, who have betrayed my trusting affec- 
tion — you who have — ' 

" ' Me !' exclaimed the now really alarmed youth, 
' what the deuce have I done V 

" ' And do you ask? — you who have created an 
insuperable barrier to our union, — you who have 
placed a chasm between us that can never be over- 
leapt — a bar that can never be taken down — a — ' 
" ' Good heavens ! what have I done ?' 
" ^ You have,' sobbed the agitated girl, almost 
choked with contending emotions, ' you have 
drunk a gin-sling !' 

" * I know it ; and what of that ?' 
" ' Unthinking, cruel man ! by so doing you have 
wrecked my peace of mind for ever, and lost your- 
self the most affectionate and devoted of wives. Did 
I not tell you — answer me — Saturday fortnight, — 
that I had become a member of the Auxiliary 
Branch Anti-marrying-young-men-who-drink- 
ardent-spirits Society — that I have vowed,' " &c. 



70 ADDRESS TO THE MARRIAGEABLE 

Then what a cUmax will the reconciliation scene 

be— 

" ' And you solemnly promise that you will never 
hereafter drink a mint julep V 

" ' Never !' 

" ' Or brandy-punch V 

" ' Or whiskey-toddy V 

" ' Never, never !' 

" ' Or a gin-sling V 

" ' Oh ! never I' 

" ' I am satisfied ! We may yet be happy !' " 

And seriously, my dears, do you expect that any 
rational, sensible, spirited man — -any man in fact 
worth having, is going to submit to have his judg- 
ment impugned, and his discretion and self-com- 
mand rated so low, as to be required to bind himself 
by oaths and vows to refrain from what he does not 
consider wrong ? But I submit it to your candor and 
good sense, whether the moderate and occasional 
use of stimulating liquors is so dangerous and per- 
nicious as it is the fashion to think, or affect to 
think, they are. I include wine, of course ; for the 
non-prohibition of wine by temperance societies is 
one of their most objectionable features ; — it is a 
partial and one-sided exemption to gain the counte- 
nance of the wealthy and influential. The rich man 



/ 



LADIES OF THE UNITED STATES. 71 

seeks the stimulus within his reach — the poor man 
does no more ; the aim and end of both is excite- 
ment, and the difference in the means and effect is 
so trivial in taking a general view of the subject. 
that it is scarcely worthy consideration. But if the 
rules and regulations of such societies lean favor- 
ably towards the rich and affluent, there are higher 
and more impartial authorities which do not. " It 
is not for kings to drink wine ; nor for princes 
strong drink : lest they drink, and forget the law, 
and pervert the judgment of any of the afflicted. 
Give strong drink unto him that is ready to perish, 
and wine unto those who be of heavy hearts." I 
do not here wish to cast the slightest imputation of 
hypocrisy, or impute unworthy motives to the friends 
and organizers of temperance societies. I believe 
many of them to be just and good men, ardently 
desirous of promoting the happiness of their fellow- 
creatures ; but I do think that they in many cases 
mistake the means, and in all attempt too much. 
At the same time, doubtless, there are many amongst 
them, who, from a natural distaste, for wine or spi- 
rits, or from possessing a weak or debilitated consti- 
tution, which imperatively forbids their indulging 
therein, make a virtue of necessity, and take credit 
to themselves for an enforced forbearance. And it 
is a curious feature in human nature, that those 



72 ADDRESS TO THE MARRIAGEABLE 

very persons are generally more intolerant than 
those who really make a sacrifice by abstaining 
from what they relish. But so it, is. 

Leaving, however, these matters to be debated by 
others, let us, ladies, take a quiet, reasonable, world- 
ly, common-sense view of the question. We will 
all, I dare say, agree that there is not under the sun 
a more degraded creature than a drunkard — a sot 
— a sponge that absorbs indiscriminately all quan- 
tities and qualities of liquors that come in his way ; 
a fellow like a desert sand, " that drinks, and drinks, 
and still is dry" — a bond-slave to a pot and glass. 
Neither will we disagree in our estimation of ano- 
ther very common and unamiable species of ani- 
mal, to wit — the noisy, coarse young man who is 
continually hanging about taverns drinking juleps, 
smoking cigars, canvassing the merits of plays and 
players, or wrangling and disputing about southern 
nullification — a mixture of ruffianism and puppy- 
ism ; the sort of person who is continually enjoying 
himself by getting into what he calls " famous 
sprees" or " duced good larks," which means com- 
mitting gratuitous impertinences and getting well 
kicked, beaten, and put into the watchhouse there- 
for ; liquor only calls forth and fully developes the 
natural rankness of the thoughts and feelings of 
such a creature ; and the sooner it kills him the 



LADIES OF THE UNITED STATES. 73 

pleasanter for society. But there is another class 
more worthy of your attention, who have not alto- 
gether foresworn the use of stimulants. Men who 
from keeping generally sober, are the more keenly 
alive to a little pleasurable elevation on particular 
occasions, their faculties and capacities for enjoy- 
ment being fresh and unworn — neither starved by 
total abstinence nor blunted and cloyed by habitual 
indulgence. In this class are to be found some of 
the choicest specimens of humanity ; the wit, the 
poet, and the philosopher, the unobtrusive student 
and the gay lively man of the world. Such per- 
sons seldom or never become drunkards — they have 
too much good taste ; and is it not uncharitable in 
you, or any one else, to attempt to affix a stigma on 
them because they sometimes, on festive occasions, 
seek relief from the wearisome monotony of the 
world in a bumper ? I take it for granted that 
nearly all men like excitement, and women too. 
True there are some schemes of quiet and rational 
happiness which omit this article entirely ; but then 
they are generally so very quiet and rational, that 
people are apt to fall asleep in the enjoyment of 
them. Your sensibihties, ladies, are quicker and 
iiner than ours, and the desired sensation is more 
easily obtained ; for instance, company, a cup of 
delicate green tea, and a modicum of harmless 

VOL. I. 7 



74 ADDRESS TO THE MARRIAGEABLE 

scandal, cause your eyes to sparkle, adorn your 
cheeks with smiles and dimples, set your tongues 
a-going, and induce precisely that state of body 
and mind which gentlemen experience after a glass 
or so. Suppose, in the midst of your sipping and 
chatting, the warm, comfortable tea-urn was to be 
removed, and a pitcher of cold water substituted in 
its place ! " Will you take another cup ?" Ah ! 
how you^ teeth chatter at the mere thoughts of 
such a thing, and what a piece of wanton barbarity 
you consider the exchange. Well, ladies, suppose 
a few decent, inoffensive gentlemen seated round a 
table, each with a glass of sparkling wine, or, why 
mince the matter, whiskey-punch before him. 
The good liquor begins to do^its office ; the " flow 
of reason and the feast of soul" commence ; the 
jest, the «ong, '.the anecdote go round — the petty 
carking cares of business are forgotten, and the 
tangible evils of life gradually fade away into thin, 
unsubstantial vapors. Their glasses are out — fill them 
again. Suppose at this stage of the business some 
spare, dissatisfied man conveyed away unobserved 
the pleasing liquids which they had been drinking, 
replenishing at the same time every glass with the 
choicest spring water. " Gentlemen," says he, " I 
will give you a toast — Temperance Societies, and 
success to their endeavors." What is the result ? 



].ADIES OF THE UNITED STATES. 75 

Why several worthy gentlemen that were about to 
be very happy, become suddenly uncomfortable, go 
home in a bad humor, and quarrel with their Avives 
about small domestic grievances. How much is 
virtue into pocket by this ? 

At public dinners (such an one as was given some 
time since to our gifted townsman, Washington Ir- 
ving,) would you excommunicate wine and spirits ? 
Would you have all generous toasts and sentiments 
washed down with cold water ? What an agree- 
able fervor would pervade the company ! At pa- 
triotic celebrations, too, think, oh think, of the 
" immortal memory of George Washington" in pure 
spring, or the " American fair," in a bumper of 
the best rock, Manhattan, or other waters of local 
notoriety ! Is such a scheme feasible ; and, if it 
were, is it desirable ? Have the lords of the crea- 
tion to follow the example of the cattle of the fields 
and other inferior animals? Then why was a 
discriminating palate given to man? Water is 
highly commendable and agreeable in many res- 
pects. It is useful in poetry, and poetical in reality. 
In a landscape, for instance, what life and anima- 
tion does it impart to the prospect ; how sweetly it 
gurgles and tinkles in a rivulet ; and into what a 
resplendent blaze of beauty it heightens a fine sun- 
set ! But when presented to the eye on a small 



76 ADDRE3S TO THE LADIES. 

scale, — that is, in a tumbler — it becomes insignifi- 
cant and contemptible, and altogether unworthy 
the notice of any person pretending to rationahty. 
Oh ladies, ladies, rescind your resolutions ; but at 
the same time beware — beware of men that drink 
alone, and of those who drink standing at the bars 
of taverns ; such persons drink for the gross love of 
liquor ; beware of gluttons, sots and habitual tip- 
plers ; but also beware of unadulterated water- 
drinkers. 



BULWER AND WALTER SCOTT. 

This is the age of discoveries — of wonderful and 
astounding, discoveries. A spirit of fermentation 
and free inquiry has got abroad, and put that 
restless little animal man into a state of preterna- 
tural disquietude, insomuch that he has adopted 
for the sober rule of his conduct Shakspeare's hiber- 
nicism, 

" We will strive with impossibilities, 
Yea, get the better of them !" 

and he hghtly projects schemes and broaches 
doctrines that would have made the hair stand 
on end upon the heads of his respectable ances- 
tors. The world never saw such times. Science 
and quackery have become so intermixed, that wor- 
thy though obtuse people are puzzled to discover 
the difference, and hence spring those two large par- 
ties — the innovators and the anti-innovators" — that 
keep society fermenting like a barrel of ale at mid- 



78 BULWER AND WALTER SCOTT. 

summer. In the eyes of the former, nothing is* 
good but what is new ; they are for turning the 
poor old world topsy-turvy, for shaking rehgion, 
poetry, law, learning and common sense out of it, 
and governing it hereafter by steam, mathematics; 
and a sublime code of morals calculated for use 
when the era of human perfectibility commences. 
The anti-innovation faction are ridiculous in ano- 
ther way : they are good fat sort of people, full of 
beef, beer, and prejudice, who are continually '-per- 
plexed with fear of change ;" who think that time 
and custom sanctify all things, and that whatever 
has been, ought to be. Their ranks are headed by 
grave, solemn old owls, who shut their eyes to the 
hght in a very owlish manner, while the recruits 
of the other are, for the most part, pert, prating 
jackdaws, dressed out in the borrowed robes of phi- 
losophy and philanthropy, and their cackle is worse 
than the croak of their opponents, inasmuch as it 
is more intrusive and presuming, the one being 
active ignorance, the other only passive. Thank 
heaven, a third party with knowledge of their own, 
unite the zeal of one faction with the caution of the 
other. 

Such being the state of things, the number of 
subUme and ridiculous discoveries daily made in 
physics, metaphysics, law, government, and litera- 



BULWER AND WALTER SCOTT 79 

ture, are scarcely to be wondered at. But the most 
notable discovery of modern times is, undoubtedly, 
the one recently made, that Edward Lytton Bul- 
wer is a writer equal to Sir Walter Scott ! The 
author of Pelham, Devereux, and the Disowned, 
equal to the author of Waverley ! And this is in 
strict accordance with the spirit of the age, which 
is characterized by nothing so much as mutability 
and love of change. The Athenians grew tired of 
always hearing Aristides called " the just," and a 
section of the literary world are tired of hearing Sir 
Walter styled " the great," and have therefore set 
up this opposition idol, whose claims, they say, 
have been weighed in the balance and not found 
wanting. It has long been the fashion to estimate 
men of genius after the manner of " Plutarch's 
Lives,'' by their comparative rather than their po- 
sitive merits, and some singular, and it is now 
confessed, outrageous comparisons, have been in- 
stituted. By many of the writei;s of his own time 
Shakspeare was adjudged to Idc inferior to Ben 
Jonson ; but with this solitary exception, the har- 
dihood of the preceding assertion has perhaps never 
been equalled. To be sure, for some time past, Sir 
Walter Scott, like the Bay of Naples, has been a 
standard for small comparisons; and the several 
admirers of all the second and third-rate novelists 



80 BULWER AND WALTER SCOTT. 

have been endeavoring to exalt their particular fa- 
vorites by insinuating that " the northern magician 
would have to look well to his laurels," or that " the 
great unknown must be content to bear a rival 
near his throne," and such half-way phrases ; but 
this is the first time a direct claim of equality has 
been put in — nay, some have asserted Mr. Bulwer's 
superiority, but that appeared to be carrying the 
joke a little too far. These valuable and extraor- 
dinary critics have for the most part been content 
to make known their opinions to the public, with- 
out stating the grounds and causes on which 
they are based. Like persons who have resolved 
on committing a rash action, they at once bolt 
forth their assertion of equality, and then, as if 
aghast at their own temerity, dare not approach the 
question a second time, coolly to give their reasons 
for what they have advanced. 

The admirers of the author of Waverley may 
quietly and calmly invite comparison, and they can 
afford to do it in a spirit of the utmost candor and 
liberality, for there is httle occasion to exalt their 
favorite (if that were possible) by the depreciation 
of any writer whatever. Render unto Mr. Bulwer 
all that can reasonably be claimed for him, (and he 
has proved that he has many noble qualifications 
for an author,) yet what does that all amount to in 



BULWER AND WALTER SCOTT. 81 

comparison with the merits of Scott ? Mr. Buhver 
is a man of talent if not of genius, a fine thinker 
and a ripe scholar ; his mind is rich in classical 
lore and philosophic reflection ; his style is polished 
and nervous, impassioned and harmonious, and he 
has produced three works of great and varied merit, 
Pelham, the Disowned, and Devereux ; but is this 
to put him at once on an equality with the man who 
has conceived and executed those glorious and im- 
perishable series of works known by the name of 
the " Waverley novels" — a world within them- 
selves, teeming with hving, breathing characters, 
stamped with nature's impress — abounding in de- 
scriptions as vivid and magnificent as ever poet 
fancied or painter drew, and filled with humor and 
pathos that flow from a source as prodigal and in- 
exhaustible as the widow's cruise ; — a " new edition 
of human nature," as it were, in its most picturesque 
forms ? To place him on a level with one who has 
done more for hterature, both in quantity and qua- 
lity, with the single exception of Shakspeare, than 
any man'since Noah left the ark ? As Othello says, 
" 'tis monstrous !" 

But to come to particulars. Much has been said 
of the qualifications Mr. Bulwer possesses, though 
but scant mention has been made of those in which 
he is deficient. His first great point of inferiority to 



82 BULWER AND WALTER SCOTT. 

Sir Walter is lack of dramatic power — he is a de- 
scriptive, the other a dramatic portrayer of men and 
manners. Sir Walter introduces his personages in 
some gipsy encampment, old change-house, or an- 
cient hostelry, hits off their costume and personal 
appearance, and then leaves them to make their 
acquaintance with the reader in their own way. 
Mr. Bulwer describes his characters — their actions 
and their motives for those actions, at full length, 
before he allows them to open their hps, fearful, it 
would seem, that their identity might be mistaken, 
like the painter who wrote under his productions 
the necessary and significant information, " this is 
a horse" and " this is an ass." Hence it is, that 
one creates characters, while the other merely de- 
scribes them. In the hands of the one they become 
instinct with life and animation ; with the other 
they are but pictures, which owe their value to 
the skill and coloring of the artist. After perusing 
Bulwer, who remembers and quotes the language 
of his characters as they do those of Meg Merrilies, 
Dirk Hatterick, Rob Roy, Helen Macgregor, Effie 
Deans, or any of the thousand creations that " live 
and move and have their being" in the pages of the 
Scotch novelist ? The studied denunciations of a 
Sir Reginald Glanville, though invested with all 
the power and energy of the writer, will, somehow 



• BULWER AND WALTER SCOTT. 83 

or Other, slip from our minds; but who ever forgets 
the threats of old Meg Merrilies to Godfrey Bertram, 
or the homely yet wild and picturesque language in 
which they are clad ? The one does without effort 
what the other with all his efforts cannot do ; the 
sayings and doings of Mr. Bulwer's personages wax 
vague and indistinct almost as soon as the volume 
is closed, while those of Scott are stamped upon 
our memory, and pass not away. 

In the pathetic, though strenuous exertions are 
made, the powers of Mr. Bulwer are evidently 
limited, at least in comparison. He writes page 
after page of description, filled with dashes, italics, 
adjectives and epithets, but it will not do. There 
is nothing to touch the heart in the wrought-up de- 
scription of the sufferings of his Gertrude Douglas 
compared with the simple history of EflSe Deans, and 
the affecting picture of the interviews between her 
and her sister Jeanie in prison. After reading them 
over, we feel that we would not part with the novel 
which contains them for all Mr. Bulwer has writ- 
ten, or is likely to write. That gentleman is very 
fond of similes and very skilful in their selection and 
application, but when did he ever equal the follow- 
ing in simple and appropriate beauty, or clothe it 
in language so perfectly — ^^but that is not it — when 
did he ever write a single passage impregnated with 



84 BULWER AND WALTER SCOTT. " 

such a gush of natural feeling as this, where " pair 
Effie," the withered hly of St. Leonard's, thus 
speaks of herself? — " And what am I," said she to 
Jeanic, " but a poor wasted wan-thriven tree, du g 
up by the roots, and flung out to waste in the high- 
way, that man and beast may tread it under foot? 
I thought o' the bonny bit thorn that our father 
rooted out o' the yard last May when it had a' the 
flush o' blossoms on it; and then it lay in the court 
till the beasts had trod them a' in pieces with their 
feet. I little thought when I was wae for the silly 
green bush and its flowers, that I was to gang the 
same gait mysel !" — Yet this is but one stroke from 
a pen that has scattered thousands of similar pas- 
sages, like wild flowers, over his works. 

On this ground the shadow of equality cannot 
be claimed. But take any other— take that on 
which Mr. Bulwer has been thought to excel. — 
There are few things he appears to have bestowed 
more pains upon than the history of Sir Reginald 
Glanville ; he has striven to impart to it all the 
effect of which he was capable, and the sufferer, in 
language energetic and profuse, pours forth the de- 
tail of his wrongs, his blighted hopes and withered 
feelings. But does this make an equal impression 
on the reader with the reckless, careless account 
given of himself by Nanty Ewart, the smugghng 



BULWER AND WALTER SCOTT. a5 

captain of the Jumping Jenny ? Yet all the ad- 
vantages are on the side of the former ; he is a 
gentleman, and undebased by low and vulgar asso- 
ciations, while the other is a drunkard, an outcast, 
and a vagabond ; yet, strange to say, Nanty Ewart 
with his low-life confessions is a much more inte- 
resting personage than the baronet with his elegant 
distresses. And why is this, but because of the 
reahty of the picture ? The one tells you of his 
woes, and that enjoyment and hope have passed 
away, but you do not realize that such is the fact ; 
the other asks no sympathy, but his snatches of old 
songs, his reckless levity and desperate jocularity, 
make you feel that a ruined and broken-hearted 
man is before you. It may be added, that the one 
has been frequently quoted as a choice specimen of 
Mr. Bulwer's powers, while the other has never 
been noted as marked with more than the ordinary 
talent of Scott. 

But if the author of Pelham is deficient in the 
pathetic, his attempts at humor are melancholy in 
the extreme.* In the worst passages of the worst 
novelists can any thing more meagre or miserable 
be picked out than his Mr. Morris Brown or Dr. 



* This was written previous to the publication of Paul Clifford, cer- 
tainly the most fortunate of Mr. Bulwer's works in this particular. 

VOL. I. 8 



86 BULWER AND WALTER SCOTT. 

Bossleton ? The humor of the former consists in 
being clad in garments the color of his name, and 
talking about a Mrs. Minden ; the latter in repeating 
the termination of every sentence twice, only re- 
versing the order of the words ; yet notwithstanding 
this slender stock in trade, the author seems to take 
an absolute pleasure in the introduction of Mr. 
Brown, and spins him through many a tedious 
page. When the reader does meet with a para- 
graph provocative of a smile, it is the descriptive 
talent of Mr. Bulwer in sketching an absurd cha- 
racter, and not the humor belonging to the charac- 
ter itself. For instance, the description in Pelham 
of Monsieur Margot's person is very good ; but when 
he brings him to act in what he intends for a laugh- 
able situation, as in the affair of the basket and 
Mrs. Green, it is lame and labored in the highest 
degree, and the end of the chapter becomes a " con- 
summation devoutly to be wished." 

From these abortive attempts turn to the pages 
of the author of Waverley, and what a mine of 
humor is to be found in every volume ! How rich 
is the vein, how varied, and how inexhaustible ! 
You have it in every shape — the humor of descrip- 
tion, of situation, and of the words and actions of 
the characters in the scene. - And how spontaneous, 
how perfectly natural and appropriate is the kind 



BULWER AND WALTER SCOTT. 87 

with which each character is imbued. It is no 
patch-work business — no continued iteration of a 
quaint phrase, that might be put into the mouth of 
one person as well as another — not a habit, a trick 
of custom, that can be got rid of, hke a cold, by a 
little care — but real, genuine, hearty humor, as 
much a part of the personages in whom it is in- 
vested, as their appetites and animal affections. 
Nothing can be more distinct than the humor of 
Cuddle Headrigge the ploughman and Ratchffe the 
thief and thieftaker, of Edie Ochiltree and Jonathan 
Oldbuck, of Captain Dalgetty and Dominie Samp- 
son, of Caleb Balderstone and Bartoline Saddletree, 
orof Baillie Michol Jarvie and the Laird of Dum- 
bedikes. And this quality is made to bear com- 
pound interest when two of these worthies are 
brought into collision, and their peculiarities exhi- 
bited in the strongest light by their different ways 
of viewing and expressing themselves on a particu- 
lar subject, like the antiquary Oldbuck and the 
old gaberlunzie Edie Ochiltree holding discourse 
about the Roman fortifications. Some of the scenes 
in which these and other characters figure, are as 
rich as any thing in English literature — as natural 
and marked with the same profound insight into 
character and attention to minutiae as those of Field- 
ing, but more highly colored, and as broad andludi- 



88 BULWER AND WALTER SCOTT. 

crous as Smollett's, but without their coarseness. 
There is the fine scene in Old MortaUty where the 
soldiers come to the miser Miln wood's house and 
seize Henry Morton. What a group is there — 
what a glorious subject for a painter ! The spare- 
pinched form and features of the old miser Miln- 
wood, his gallant and handsome nephew (worth 
all Mr. Bulwer's speech-making, compliment-mak- 
ing, diplomatic heroes,) the fine old housekeeper 
Alison Wilson, the prim, scraggy, puritanical Mause, 
groaning in spirit, and " nursing her wrath to keep 
it warm," the solid-looking and apparently stupid 
(I^uddie, and the bold, profiigate Both well. What 
interest in the action and contrast in the faces, and 
expression of the faces ! It would make the for- 
tune of any artist who could do this scene justice. 
And then the dialogue : old Mause testifying against 
tlie proceedings of Both well and his dragoons, and 
uplifting her voice in order that " by her means 
Master Henry might be delivered like a bird from 
the net of the fowler !" and Cuddle's expostulations 
w^ith his mother •' anent" her testifications, and the 
fine contrast between her spiritual aspirations and 
his longing after homely temporalities ; then the 
account of Mause and the Rev. Gabriel Kettle- 
drummle's being carried into captivity by the men 
of Belial ; and again. Dominie Sampson and all 



BULWER AND WALTER SCOTT. 89 

the transactions in which he is concerned, particu- 
larly his manoeuvre to recover Lucy Bertram from 
her fainting fit by the application of scalding water ; 
and Caleb Balderstone's contrivances ; and the ma- 
trimonial dialogues between Mr. and Mrs. Saddle- 
tree, and so on, ad infinitum. It is dangerous to 
commence quoting from those novels, for there is 
no knowing where to stop. Perhaps the best way 
to make manifest Sir Walter Scott's superiority over 
every other novelist, would be to merely give the 
titles of his works and enumerate the characters 
contained in them ; the appeal of so many old ac- 
quaintances to the recollections of the public would 
be irresistible. 

To " copy nature," is a general and indiscrimi- 
nate piece of advice more applicable to a painter 
than an author, though addressed to either it is 
looked upon as a pithy and profound injunction. 
Now to copy nature in her every-day forms, is nei- 
ther difiicult nor desirable. To report the slip-slop 
conversation of a tea-table is to copy nature, and 
the more literal the copy the less the skill required ; 
but to be true to nature — to anticipate her, and 
make human beings in extraordinary situations 
and agitated by strong and conflicting passions, act 
and speak as she would make them act and speak 
in such situations — to make them do and say that 

8* 



90 BULWER AND WALTER SCOTT. 

which the reader has no conception of beforehand^ 
but which, the moment he has read it, flashes upon 
him as tlie only thing they ought or could have 
done and said, is a power that few mortals are 
gifted with, and it remains to be shown that Mr. 
Bulwer is one of them. His characters have none 
of the flippant prittle-prattle of common conversa- 
tion put into their mouths ; on the contrary, they 
are in the opposite extreme, and many times talk 
and act as men and women never talk and acted 
before. They harangue, first one a speech, and 
then the other a speech, by the page together, and 
are by far too didactic and declamatory. The fol- 
lowing is one instance of this author's infelicitous 
adaptation of the language and actions of his per- 
sonages to time, place, and circumstances. The 
scene is a midnight assassination, where Algernon 
Mordaunt falls by the hand of the conspirator 
Wolfe. Clarence Linden catches him as he falls, 
and with his murdered friend in his arms, and the 
miu'derer standing beside him, gives vent to his feel- 
ings in the following pertinent and appropriate in- 
terrogation : — " Oh where — where — when this man 
— the wise, the kind, the innocent, almost the per- 
fect, falls thus in the prime of existence, by a sudden 
blow from an obscure hand — unblest in life, inglo- 
rious in death — oh ! where — where is this boasted 
triumph of virtue, or where is its reward ?" 



BULWER AND WALTER SCOTT. 91 

Would nature or Sir Walter Scott have made 
any man prate after this fashion under such circum- 
stances? True, the author endeavors to soften 
down the absurdity by saying that Linden was un- 
conscious of the presence of the assassin, but it is 
easier for the reader to be told so, than for him to 
believe it. A maiden in such a situation with her 
lover, or a mother with her child, might be uncon- 
scious of any thing save the object they were 
hanging over — but men and politicians — common 
friends, and the surviving friend cool and collected 
enough to question the decrees of fate " in good set 
terms" — for such a one to forget the murderer at his 
elbow, is one of those remarkable instances of ab- 
straction that very seldom occur, except in a French 
tragedy ; and it may be very good French- tragedy 
nature, but that is about all. If Linden had seized 
the assassin and called the watch, it would have 
been a more natural sort of proceeding, and much 
more in accordance with Mr. Bulwer's utilitarian 
principles. 

The forte of this writer appears to be eloquent 
declamation — melancholy, fervid, or despairing, but 
still declamation. (The terms " melancholy" and 
" despairing" declamation may sound strange, but 
perhaps they are not inapplicable to some passages 
in Mr. B.'s works.) In Mordaunt it is calm, me- 



92 BULWER AND WALTER SCOTT, 

lancholy, and philosophic ; fervid and impassioned 
in the republican Wolfe ; desperate and despairing 
in the villain Crauford ; and by turns bitter and 
enthusiastic in the painter Warner.* This is an 
imposing but not veiy difficult kind of writing, and 
the real talent employed in it generally passes for 
more than it is worth. This author's is of the best 
description, and though certainly the " passion 
sleeps," it cannot be added that the " declamation 
roars ;" it often softens down into moralizing reflec- 
tion, in which the similes and images employed 
are frequently beautiful, and the language in which 
they are clothed flowing and melodious, and, when 
occasion demands, nervous and vigorous ; but it is 
not all this — no, nor judiciously introduced classical 
allusions and quotations — nor ingenious refutations 
of common-place maxims and opinions — nor bril- 
liant and antithetical aphorisms, that is to elevate a 
man to an equality with the author of the Scotch 
novels, to say nothing of the English ones. But it 
in no way detracts from Mr. Bulwer's reputation as 
a fine writer, to say that Walter Scott is immensely 
superior to him ; after that wonderful man he is 



* The feelings and sufferings of Warner have a striking resem- 
blance to those of the Italian painter Correggio, as depicted in a tra- 
gedy of that name, a review of which is to be found in one of the early 
numbers of Blackwood's Magazine. 



BULWER AND WALTER SCOTT. 93 

undoubtedly the most popular novelist of the day. 
He may, in the novelty and excitement attending 
his debut be both over and under-rated, but 

" Time at last sets all things even," 

and he will doubtless find his proper level, which 
we think will be far above the mass of his contem- 
poraries — a httle higher than the writer of the 
O'Hara tales, and some degrees below the author 
of Anastasius. 

But for thee, good Sir Walter ! the time is yet to 
come when thou wilt receive the fulness of thy fame. 
The present generation admire and applaud thee, 
the future will feel a deeper and holier reverence for 
thee ; and the language in which thou hast immor- 
talized thyself is one that is fast spreading in every 
quarter of this habitable globe. Over the inimitable 
regions of this continent wilt thou be read and wor- 
shipped ; in distant India and the yet untrodden 
wildernesses of Australasia will thy name be known; 
and the time may come when the British Isles will 
be but as specks of earth to the boundless countries 
that will speak their language and treasure up their 
glorious literature. Then will the halls of Abbots- 
ford become " pilgrim shrines," and every decayed 
memorial that speaks of thee a relic. And when 
the tide of population shall have poured over the 



94 BULWER AND WALTER SCOTT. 

mountain barrier, filling every highland glen with 
cotton factories — and "weavers, spinners and such 
mechanical persons" erect their looms in the very 
country of Rob Roy, the wild warriors and plaided 
chieftains that once trod those rugged glens and 
heathery hills will still hve in thy undying page, 
and thou wilt be the connecting link between a 
present and a past age — the chronicler of the 
" tales of the times of old, and deeds of the days of 
other years." What strange and savage customs — 
what deadly feuds — what wild legends — what fu- 
rious passions and fierce fidelity lay concealed be- 
hind those mountains that gird the highlands, and 
which, but for thee, would have passed unrecorded 
to oblivion ; but as the prophet of old smote the 
rock and the waters gushed forth, so didst thou, 
with thy magic wand, touch those highland hills, 
and the whole billowy scene lay disclosed to view ! 
Then the bloody lowland and English wars, what 
an historian would they have missed; and though 
upon the border side, 

*' The glaring bale-fires blaze no more," 

and the " gallant Gordons" and thieving Arm- 
strongs and Elliotts keep honest snuff and tobacco- 
nist shops in Kelso and Jedburgh, yet shall not 
the bitter feuds and midnight forays of their law- 



BULWER AND WALTER SCOTT. 95 

lessj fearless ancestors be forgotten. And when time 
shall have made a brick and mortar land of England 
— when some future Manchester or Birmingham 
perchance stands reeking and smoking where the 
merry forest of Sherwood stood, still will its verdant 
glades once " clad ' in England's fadeless green," 
and its strong and towering oaks look fresh and 
imwithered in thy pages. How will the future 
fiwejl upon the courtly pageantries of Kenilworth 
and the knightly chivalry of Ivanhoe — and the 
ridings and onslaughts of the border barons — and 
the gatherings of the clans in the seventy-six ; and 
thy native humor will brighten many an eye, and 
thy touches of homely natural feeling thrill in many 
a bosom yet unborn. . Thousands will laugh and 
weep with thee in thy works when the kind heart 
and capacious head that conceived them are clods 
of the valley ; and 

'• As long as the thistle and heather shall wave" 

will thy memory be worshipped and thy name 
treasured up in the hearts of posterity. 



A WALK IN BROADWAY.* 

Reader 1 gentle or ungentle ! if thou for a moment 
supposest that I, in placing this or any other forth- 
coming paper under the same title as the essays of 
Samuel Johnson, have the slightest intention of 
being as grave, as learned, as wise and as eloquent 
as the worthy doctor, be not alarmed : read but 
the end of this lucubration, and thou wilt be con- 
vinced that no such outrage against the prevaihng 
taste of the times is intended. I do not say but 
that I could be all this, if it so pleased me ; but I 
hope I have too much discretion, as well as too 
strong a desire to be read, to harbor the smallest 
thought of gravity or wisdom in an age when start- 
ling paradoxes have such a decided advantage over 
sober truths. Antiquated authors hke Steele, Ad- 
dison, Goldsmith, or Johnson, who are now, indeed, 
fast falling into deserved oblivion, but whose names 



* This essay was No. 1 of a series published under the title of the 
Rambler. 



A WALK IN BROADWAY. 97 

may possibly be remembered by a few of the most 
erudite of this generation, wrote to instruct ; their 
wiser descendants aim at the higher province of 
amusement ; and a writer that is now detected at- 
tempting to be useful, is justly looked upon as no 
better than he should be. If any instruction is to 
be administered, it must be as pills are to children 
— smothered in sweetmeats. The grand secret of 
composition now-a-days (except among the high- 
est,) is to be flippant, fantastical, and unfeeling, to- 
gether with the judicious use of notes of exclama- 
tion and interrogation, and a copious admixture of 
dashes and asterisks. But this is foreign to the 
matter in hand. 

I have been a wanderer for the major part of my 
sinful life in different parts of the globe, and among 
other places have frequently wandered up and down 
Broadway, a street situated on a small island be- 
tween the East and North rivers in the state of 
New- York, and which the inhabitants of the said 
small island boast of as being the finest promenade 
in the United States, much to the discomfort of the 
mild and equable citizens of the neighboring city of 
Philadelphia, who, upon the hearing of such an 
assertion, wax exceeding wrothful, and straightway 
commence talking, with great energy and anima- 
tion, of butter and water. At first I could not per- 

TOL. I. 9 



98 A WALK IN BROADWAY. 

ceive the connexion ; but was afterwards given to 
understand, that as Broadway and business were 
the boast of New- York, so were pure water and 
excellent butter the distinguished attributes of Phi- 
ladelphia ; and that the one was invariably used as 
a set-off against the other ! (In what strange ways, 
and after what strange fashions, will not men claim 
distinction !) Nay, to such a height has this frantic 
lust of pre-eminence been carried, that blood has 
been spilt, and the peace of families wrecked, upon 
the butter question ; and a New- York merchant 
tenderly attached to, beloved by, and upon the brink 
of marriage with, a Philadelphia heiress, after a 
three years' struggle against numerous rivals and 
difficulties, actually lost the lady at last by auda- 
ciously and pertinaciously affirming, that '• the but- 
ter was good enough, but nothing to make a noise 
about !" 

Broadway, however, is a very fine street, the 
longest, it is said, in a direct line, in the world. 
There is not any thing particularly splendid in it. 
and the stores, in general, are neither large nor ele- 
gant, with an unseemly disproportion of lottery- 
offices among them ; but the almost unbroken 
line of respectable houses, neatly painted, and 
shaded by lofty trees, gives it an air of substantial 
comfort, and at the same time of lightness and 



A WALK IN BROADWAY. 99 

freshness, highly desirable. It is pleasant to stroll 
along it ; or, indeed, the principal street of any 
large city. What a motley group of beings — alike, 
yet hov<^ different — are daily pressing and hurrying 
over its pavements ! What a multiplicity of hopes, 
and fears, and petty plans, and lofty schemes, are 
unceasingly fermenting in the bosom of every in- 
dividual that moves along the narrow footwalks ! 
Yet it is not the variety of human passions that 
makes the wonder, for joy and sorrow, love and 
hate, pride, vanity, interest, and ambition are com- 
mon to all ; but the endless combinations formed 
by those passions according to the different degrees 
in which they preponderate and act on different 
individuals, and on the same individuals in differ- 
ent situations. Take up an arithmetic, and ten 
simple figures form the ground-work ; yet how 
many million combinations, and no two alike, can 
be created by these ten figures. So it is with man 
and his concerns. And still, despite the individual 
variety, what a general sameness prevails. The 
hopes, and cares, and joys, and sorrows of one day 
are like the hopes, and cares, and joys, and sorrows 
of the next ; and the same drama that is hourly 
felt and acted in the streets of New -York, is play- 
ing with equal animation amid the wealth and 
smoke of London, and the sunshine and poverty 

' L., Ui V/a ><. 



100 A WALK IN BROADWAY. 

of Naples— the gravity of Madrid, and the gaiety of 
Paris. Two thousand years ago, the " eternal 
city" had her belles and beaux, her flirts and 
dandies (a Roman dandy !) — and two thousand 
years hence, or less time, will the cannibals of New- 
Zealand have eschewed war dances and raw vic- 
tuals, and have their blue-stocking tea-parties, bis- 
cuit and lemonade soirees^ French cooks, and fa- 
shionable quadrilles, as well as anybody. All is 
still 

" The everlasting to be, that hath been ;" 

and the probability is, that the antediluvians wrote 
poetry, told lies, wore whiskers, and cheated their 
neighbors, just as we do now. 

It is also pleasant, as well as curious and profita- 
ble, in roaming through a large city, to contrast its 
present with its former situation — to compare what 
it has been with what it is, and to speculate on what 
it may be. New- York, to be sure, is not rich in 
historical recollections, for she is comparatively a 
thing of yesterday. In walking her streets we do 
not feel as in the ancient capitals of Europe, that 
our footsteps, perchance, fall on the very places 
where those of the mighty dead have fallen before 
us. In the older streets of London, we know that 
we are walking where Richard, Duke of Gloucester, 



A WALK IN BROADWAY. 101 

'' high-reaching Buckingham," or Harry Hotspur, 
actually walked, and that Shakspeare and Milton 
familiarly trod even where we then tread ; or the 
High-street of Edinburgh — where the Leslie and 
the Seyton, the Gordon and the Douglass, were 
wont foolishly and gallantly to stab and dirk each 
other for the " crown o' the causeway." True, all 
is now common-place and familiar ; the merchant 
plods homeward with his umbrella under his arm, 
instead of his rapier by his side. But great as the 
change is there from the past to the present, it has 
still been gradual. Step by step have they toiled 
their way from barbarism to civilization. Here, it 
has been as the shifting of the scenery in a play, 
rather than sober reality. It is but as the other 
day when the forest flourished where now '' mer- 
chants most do congregate," and the streamlet mur- 
nmred where the gin-shop stands. The council-fires 
blazed and the sachems spoke to their young men 
where now the honorable Richard Riker and the 
honorable the corporation hold '• long talks" about 
small matters. The wigwam sent its tiny wreaths 
of smoke into the clear air, where now the bank 
coffee-house pours forth volumes of odoriferous 
steam to mingle with the masses of vapor that over- 
hang the city like a cloud ; and its tables groan 
with " all the delicacies of the season" where the 

9* 



10^ A WALK IN BROADWAY. 

deer from the wood and the fish from the stream 



were cooked and eaten without the aid of pepper 
and salt — two of the greatest blessings of civiliza- 
tion. 

And not more different than the scenes were the 
actors concerned in them. Step aside, good reader, 
and mark them as they now pass along Broadway. 
The first is one but little known to Indian life — 
one who lives by the folly and roguery of the fools 
and rogues around him — a lawyer. He is clad in 
solemn black, as if that were ominous of the gloom 
which follows in his train. What would the In- 
dian, with his untaught natural sense of right and 
wrong, think of this man's " quiddets, his quillets, 
his cases, his tenures and his* tricks ;'' and of " his 
statutes, his recognizances, his fines, his double 
vouchers and his recoveries ?" Alas ! the poor In- 
dian has but too deeply felt his power and the 
power of his brethren in the modern " black art.'* 
They conjured away his pleasant haunts " under 
the greenwood tree," his silver streams teeming 
with life, his beautiful lakes and fair hunting 
grounds, all " according to law," and left him a 
string of beads and a bottle of firerwater, a bruised 
heart and a broken spirit in their place. Here 
comes another product of the present times, neither 
rare nor valuable, indigenous to Broadway, and 



A WALK IN BROADWAY. 103 

flourishing there in pecuUar rankness ; a modern 
Sir Fopling Flutter, of whom it may well be said 
with the poet, 

" Nature disclaims the thing — a tailor made him !" 

Mark with what affected effeminacy the full-grown 
baby lounges along, and the air of listless indiffer- 
ence or slightly awakened surprise with which it is 
his pleasure to regard a fine woman ; but what, 
indeed, are all the women in the world to this cari- 
cature of manhood, in comparison with his own 
sweet self? Anon, another variety of the same 
genus appears, quite as contemptible, not so amus- 
ing, and a great deal more disagreeable. This is 
your ruffian-dandy ; one who affects a dashing 
carelessness in his dress and deportment, wears 
good clothes in a very ill fashion, and has generally 
a checked shirt, a sailor's hat, or some other arti- 
cle of dress sufficiently different from the ordinary 
costume of those around him to render him an ob- 
ject of notoriety. Mark the easy dignity of that 
swagger as he rolls along, staring impudently at 
all the women and frowning valiantly at all the 
men, as if he expected every moment to be insulted, 
and was afraid his courage might not be screwed 
up " to the sticking place." A sort of personage not 
unlike Mike Lambourne in Kenilworth, allowing 



104 A WALK IN BROADWAT 

for the modifications of the times. But lo ! what 
comes next — dame nature's loveUest work, a wo- 
man ; butj heaven and earth ! how the mantua- 
maker has spoiled her ! Why, what frippery have 
we here ? Silks and lace, ribbons and gauze, fea- 
thers, flowers, and flounces ! Not but that these 
are all excellent things in their way, when judi- 
ciously used ; but to see them all clustered, as in 
the present instance, on one woman at one time, is 
what the proverb states to be " too much of a good 
thing," or what the poet terms " wasteful and ridi- 
culous excess." Then look at those sleeves in 
which her arms are lost, and that acre of hat upon 
her head, with a sufficiency of wheat ears and 
flowers on it, were they real, to feed a family or 
stock a garden. And see ! as far as the eye can 
reach it rests on colors as varied and fantastical as 
the butterflies in summer or the leaves in autumn, 
in which the dear creatures have arrayed them- 
selves. Oh, matrimony, matrimony ! thou art in- 
deed becoming a luxury in w^hich the rich and opu- 
lent alone will be able to indulge. Nine small 
children might be supported, but to deck out one 
of Eve's daughters in this fashion three hundred 
and sixty-five days in the year, is what nothing 
but a prize in the lottery or a profitable bankruptcy 
is equal to. — Still on they pass in throngs : the 



A WALK IN BROADWAY. 105 

grave and thoughtful student, abstracted from all 
around, building up his day-dream of fame, for- 
tune, and beauty, and then in love with the cun- 
ning coinage of his own brain ; and the rich old 
merchant, not in love with any thing but still in 
raptures, for cotton has risen an eighth. On they 
pass, the whiskered Don, the sallow Italian, the 
bulky EngUshman, and the spare Frenchman, all 
as eager (as a professed moralist might say,) in the 
pursuit of business and pleasure, as if enjoyment 
were perpetual and life eternal : and all this where, 
but a little while ago, the wolf made his lair, and 
the savage his dwelling-place. Verily, as a profound 
German philosopher acutely though cautiously ob- 
served — " let a man live long enough, and it is pro- 
bable he will see many changes," 



STEAM. 

I had a dream, which was not all a dream. — Byron, 

Modern philosophy, anon, 

Will, at the rate she's rushing on , 

Yoke lightning to her railroad-car, 

And, posting like a shooting star, 

Swift as a solar radiation 

Ride the grand circuit of creation ! — Anon. 

I HAVE a bilious friend, who is a great admirer and 
imitator of Lord Byron ; that is, he affects misan- 
thropy, masticates tobacco, has his shirts made 
without collars, calls himself a miserable man, and 
writes poetry with a glass of gin-and-water before him. 
His gin, though far from first-rate, is better than his 
poetry ; the latter, indeed, being worse than that of 
many authors of the present day, and scarcely fit even 
for an album ; however, he does not think so, and 
makes a great quantity. At his lodgings, a few 
evenings ago, among other morbid productions, he 
read me one entitled " Steam," written in very blank 
verse, and evidently modelled after the noble poet's 



STEAM. 107 

" Darkness," in Avhich he takes a bird's-eye view 
of the world two or three centuries hence, describes 
things in general, and comes to a conclusion with, 
'' Steam was the universe !" Whether it was the 
fumes arising from this piece of " written" vapor, or 
whether I had unconsciously imbibed more hol- 
lands than my temperate habits allow of, I cannot 
say, but I certainly retired to bed hke Othello, " per- 
plexed in the extreme." There was no " dream- 
less sleep" for me that night, and Q,ueen Mab drove 
full gallop through every nook and cranny of my 
brain. Strange and fantastical visions floated be- 
fore me, till at length came one with all the force 
and clearness of reahty. 

I thought I stood upon a gentle swell of ground, 
and looked down on the scene beneath me. It was 
a pleasant sight, and yet a stranger might have 
passed it by unheeded ; but to me it was as the 
green spot in the desert, for there I recognised the 
haunts of my boyhood. There was the wild com- 
mon on which I had so often scampered " frae mor- 
nin sun till dine," skirted by the old wood, through 
which the burn stole tinkhng to the neighboring 
river. There was the little ivy-covered church with 
its modest spire and immoveable weathercock, and 
clustering around lay the village that I knew con- 
tained so many kind and loving hearts. All looked 



108 STEAM. 

just as it did on the summer morning when I left 
it, and went wandering over this weary world. 
To me the very trees possessed an individuality ; 
the branches of the old oak (there was but one) 
seemed to nod famiharly towards me, the music of 
the rippling water fell pleasantly on my ear, and 
the passing breeze murmured of " home, sweet 
home." The balmy air was laden with the hum 
of unseen insects, and filled with the fragrance of a 
thousand common herbs and flowers ; and to my 
eyes the place looked prettier and pleasanter than 
any they have since rested on. As I gazed, the 
" womanish moisture" made dim my sight, and I 
felt that yearning of the heart which every man 
who has a soul feels — let him go where he will, or 
reason how he will — on once more beholding the 
spot where the only pure, unsullied part of his ex- 
istence passed away. — Suddenly the scehe changed. 
The quiet, smiling village vanished, and a busy, 
crowded city occupied its place. The wood was 
gone, the brook dried up, and the common cut to 
pieces and covered with a kind of iron gangways. 
I looked upon the surrounding country, if country 
it could be called, where vegetable nature had 
ceased to exist. The neat, trim gardens, the ver- 
dant lawns and swelling uplands, the sweet-scented 
meadows and waving corn-fields were all swept 



STEAM. 109 

away, and fruit, and flowers, and herbage, appeared 
to be things uncared for and unknown. Houses 
and factories, and turnpikes and railroads, were 
scattered all around, and along the latter, as if pro- 
pelled by some unseen, infernal power, monstrous 
machines flew with inconceivable swiftness. Peo- 
ple were crowding and jostling each other on all 
sides. I mingled with them, but they were not 
like those I had formerly known — they walked, 
talked, and transacted business of all kinds with 
astonishing celerity. Every thing was done in a 
hurry ; they eat, drank, and slept in a hurry ; they 
danced, sung, and made love in a hurry ; they 
married, died, and were buried in a hurry, and 
resurrection-men had them out of their graves be- 
fore they well knew they were in them. Whatever 
was done, was done upon the high-pressure princi- 
ple. No person stopped to speak to another in the 
street ; but as they moved rapidly on their way, the 
men talked faster than the women do now, and the 
women talked twice as fast as ever. Many were 
bald, and on asking the reason, I was given to un- 
derstand they had been great travelers, and that 
the rapidity of modern conveyances hterally scalped 
those who journeyed much in them, sweeping whis- 
kers, eye-brows, eye-lashes, in fact, every thing in 
any way moveable, from their faces. Animal life 

VOL. I. 10 



110 STEAM. 

appeared to be extinct ; carts and carriages came 
rattling down the highways horseless and driver- 
less, and wheelbarrows trundled along without any 
visible agency. Nature was out of fashion, and 
the world seemed to get along tolerably Well with- 
out her. 

At the foot of the street my attention was at- 
tracted by a house they were building of prodigious 
dimensions, being no less than seventeen stories 
high. On the top of it several men were at work, 
when, dreadful to relate, the foot of one of them 
slipped, and he was precipitated to the earth with a 
fearful crash. Judge of my horror and indignation 
on observing the crowd pass unheeding by, scarcely 
deigning to cast a look on their fellow-creature, who 
doubtless lay weltering in his water, and the rest of 
the workmen went on with their various avocations 
without a moment's pause in consequence of the 
accident. On approaching the spot, I heard several 
in passing murmur the most incomprehensible ob- 
servations. " Only a steam man," said one. 
" Won't cost much," said another. " His boiler 
overcharged, I suppose,*' cried a third, '* the way 
in which all these accidents happen!" and true 
enough, there lay a man of tin and sheet-iron, wel- 
tering in hot water. The superintendent of the 
concern, who was not a steam man, but made of 



STEAM. Ill 

the present materials, gave it as his opinion that 
the springs were damaged, and the steam-vessels a 
httle ruptured, but not much harm done, and 
straightway sent the corpse to the blacksmith's 
(who was a flesh-and-blood man) to be repaired. 
Here was then at once a new version of the old 
Greek fable, and modern Prometheuses were ac- 
tually as " plentiful as blackberries." In fact, I 
found upon inquiry, that society was now divided 
into two great classes, living and " locomotive" 
men, the latter being much the better and honester 
people of the two ; and a fashionable political econo- 
mist, of the name of Malthus, a lineal descendant 
of an ancient, and it appears rather inconsistent 
system-monger, had just published an elaborate 
pamphlet, showing the manifold advantages of 
propagating those no-provender-consuming indi- 
viduals in preference to any other. So that it ap- 
peared, that any industrious mechanic might in 
three months have a full-grown family about him, 
with the full and comfortable assurance that, as the 
man says in Chrononhotonthologos, " they were 
all his own and none of his neighbors." 

These things astonished, but they also perplexed 
and wearied me. My spirit grew sick, and I longed 
for the old world again, and its quiet and peaceable* 
modes of enjoyment. I had no fellowship with the 



112 STEAM. 

two new races of beings around me, and nature 
and her charms were no more. All things seemed 
forced, unnatural, unreal — indeed, little better than 
barefaced impositions. I sought the hanks of my 
native river ; it alone remained unchanged. The 
noble stream flowed gently and tranquilly as of 
yore, but even here impertinent man had been at 
work, and pernicious railroads were formed to its 
very verge. I incautiously crossed one of them., 
trusting to my preconceived notions of time and 
space, the abhorred engine being about three quar- 
ters of a mile from me, but scarcely had I stepped 
over, when it flew whizzing past the spot I had 
just quitted, and catching me in its eddy, spun me 
around like a top under the lash. It was laden 
with passengers, and went with headlong fury 
straight towards the river. Its fate seemed inevi- 
table^another instant and it would be immersed 
in the waves, when lo I it suddenly sunk into the 
bosom of the earth, and in three seconds was as- 
cending a perpendicular hill on the opposite bank 
of the river. I was petrified, and gazed around 
with an air of helpless bewilderment, when a gen- 
tleman, who was doubtless astonished at my asto-^ 
nishment, shouted in passing, " What's the fellow 
staring at ?" and another asked " if I had never 
seen a tunnel before T 



STEAM. 113 

Like Lear, " my wits began to turn." I wished 
for some place where I might hide myself from all 
around, and turned instinctively to the spot where 
the village ale-house used to stand. But where, 
alas ! was the neat thatched cottage that was wont 
so often to 

" impart 
An hour's importance to the poor man's heart ?'' 

Gone ! and in its place stood a huge fabric, label- 
led " Grand Union Railroad Hotel." But here also 
it was steam, steam, nothing but steam ! The 
rooms were heated by steam, the beds were made 
and aired by steam, and instead of a pretty, red- 
lipped, rosy-cheeked chambermaid, there was a 
cursed machine-man smdothing down the pillows 
and bolsters with mathematical precision ; the vic- 
tuals wece cooked by steam ; yea, even the meat 
roasted by steam ! Instead of the clean-swept 
hearth 

" With aspen boughs, and flowers, and fennel gay," 

there was a patent steam-stove, and the place was 
altogether hotter than any decent man would ever 
expect to have any thing to do with. Books and 
papers lay scattered on a table. I took up one of 
the former ; it was filled with strange new phrases, 
all more or less relating to steam, of which I knew 

10* 



114 STEAM. 

nothing, but as far as I could make out the English 
of the several items, they ran somewhat thus : 
. " Another shocking catastrophe, — As the war- 
ranted-safe locomotive smoke-consuming, fuel-pro- 
viding steam-carriage Lightning, was this morning 
proceeding at its usual three-quarter speed of one 
hundred and twenty-seven miles an hour, at the 
junction of the Hannington and Slipsby rail-roads 
it unfortunately came in contact with the steam- 
carriage Snail, going about one hundred and five 
miles per hour. Of course both vehicles with their 
passengers were instantaneously reduced to an im- 
palpable powder. The friends of the deceased have 
the consolation of knowing that no blame can possi- 
bly attach to the intelligent proprietors of the Light- 
ning, it having been clearly ascertained that those 
of the Snail started their carriage full two seconds 
before the time agreed on, in order to obviate in 
some degree, the delay to which passengers were 
unavoidably subjected by the clumsy construction 
and tedious pace of their vehicle." 

" Melancholy accident. — As a beautiful and ac- 
complished young lady of the name of Jimps, a 
passenger in the Swift-as-thought-locomotive, was 
endeavoring to catch a flying glimpse of the new 
Steam University, her breathing apparatus unfor- 
tunately slipped from her mouth, and she was a 



STEAM 115 

corpse in three quarters of a second. A young 
gentleman, who had been tenderly attached to her 
for several days, in the agony of his feelings with- 
drew his air tube and called for help ; he of course 
shared a similar fate. Too much praise cannot be 
given to the rest of the passengers, who, with inimi- 
table presence of mind, prudently held their breath- 
ing-bladders to their mouths during the whole of 
this trying scene," (fee. 

A Liverpool paper stated that " The stock for the 
grand Liverpool and Dubhn tunnel under the Irish 
channel, is nearly filled up." And a Glasgow one 
advocated the necessity of a floating wooden rail- 
road between Scotland and the Isle of Man, in order 
to do away with the tiresome steamboat naviga- 
tion. I took up a volume of poems, but the similes 
and metaphors were all steam ; all their ideas of 
strength, and power, and swiftness, referred to 
steam only, and a sluggish man was compared to 
a greyhound. I looked into a modern dictionary 
for some light on these subjects, but got none, ex- 
cept finding hundreds of curious definitions, such 
as these * 

" Horse, s. an animal of which but little is now 
known. Old writers affirm that there were at one 
time several thousands in this country." 

" Tree, s. a vegetable production ; once plenti- 



XX6 STEAM, 

ful in these parts, and still to be found in remote 
districts." 

" Tranquillity^ s. obsolete ; an unnatural state 
of existence, to which the ancients were very par- 
tial. The word is to be met with in several old 
authors," &c. &c. 

In despair I threw down the book, and rushed 
out of the house. It was mid-day, but a large 
theatre was open, and the people were pouring in. 
I entered with the rest, and found that whatever 
changes had taken place, money was still money. 
They were playing Hamlet by steam, and this was 
better than any other purpose to which I had seen 
it applied. The automata really got along won- 
derfully well, their speaking faculties being arranged 
upon the barrel-organ principle greatly improved, 
and they roared, and bellowed, and strutted, and 
swung their arms to and fro as sensibly as many 
admired actors. Unfortunately in the grave scene, 
owing to some mechanical misconstruction, Ham- 
let exploded, and in doing so, entirely demolished 
one of the grave-diggers, carried away a great part 
of Laertes, and so injured the rest of the 'dramatis 
persOnse that they went off one after the other like 
so many crackers, filling the house with heated va- 
por. I made my escape, but on reaching the 
street, things there were ten times worse than ever. 



STEAM. 117 

It was the hour for stopping and starting the seve- 
ral carriages, and no language can describe the 
state of the atmosphere. Steam was generating 
and evaporating on all sides — the bright sun was 
obscured — the people looked par-boiled, and the 
neighboring fisherman's lobsters changed color on 
the instant ; even the steam inhabitants appeared 
uncomfortably hot. I could scarcely breathe — 
there was a blowing, a roaring, a hissing, a fiz- 
zing, a whizzing going on all around — fires were 
blazing, water was bubbling, boilers were bursting 
— when, lo ! I suddenly awoke and found myself 
in a state of profuse perspiration. I started up, ran 
to the window, and saw several milkmen and ba- 
kers' carts, with horses in them, trotting merrily 
along. I was a thankful man. I put on my 
clothes, and while doing so, made up my mind to 
read no more manuscript poems, and eschew gin 
and water for the time to come. 



BIOGRAPHY OF JACOB HAYS.* 

'- He is a man, take him for all in all 

We shall not look Aipon his like again. — Shaks. 

Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce to your acquaintance. 
Baron iVa6em, a person who has a very taking way with him. — Tom 
and Jerry. 

Perhaps there is no species of composition so ge- 
nerally interesting and truly delightful as minute 
and indiscriminate biography, and it is pleasant to 
perceive how this taste is gradually increasing. 
The time is apparently not far distant when every 
man will be found busy writing the life of his 
neighbor, and expect to have his own written in 
return, interspersed with original anecdotes, extracts 
from epistolary correspondence, the exact hours at 
which he was in the habit of going to bed at night 
and getting up in the morning, and other miscella- 
neous and useful information carefully selected and 
judiciously arranged. Indeed, it is whispered that 
the editors of this papert intend to take Longworth's 



* This was written during an awful prevalence of biographies, 
t The New-York Min-or. 



BIOGRAPHY OF JACOB HAYS. II9 

Directory for the groundwork, and give the private 
history of all the city alphabetically, without " fear 
or favor — love or affection." In Europe there exists 
an absolute biographical mania, and they are ma- 
nufacturing lives of poets, painters, play-actors, 
peers, pugilists, pick-pockets, horse jockeys, and 
their horses, together with a great many people 
that are scarcely known to have existed at all. 
And the fashion now is not only to shadow forth 
the grand and striking outlines of a great man's 
character, and hold to view those quahties which 
elevated him above his species, but to go into the 
minutiae of his private life, and note down all the 
trivial expressions and every day occurrences in 
which, of course, he merely spoke and acted like 
any ordinary man. This not only affords employ- 
ment for the exercise of the small curiosity and 
meddUng propensities of his oflficious biographer, but 
is also highly gratifying to the general reader, inas- 
much as it elevates him mightily in his own opi- 
nion to see it put on record that great men ate, 
drank, slept, walked, and sometimes talked just as 
he does. In giving the biography of the high con- 
stable of this city, I shall by all means avoid de- 
scending to undignified particulars ; though I deem 
it important to state, before proceeding further, that 
there is not the slightest foundation for the report 



120 BIOGRAPHY OF JACOB HAYS. 

afloat that Mr. Hays has left off eating buckwheat 
cakes in a morning, in consequence of their lying 
loo heavily on his stomach. 

Where the subject of the present memoir was 
born, can be but of little consequence ; who were his 
father and mother, of still less ; and how he was 
bred and educated, of none at all. I shall there- 
fore pass over this division of his existence in elo- 
quent silence, and come at. once to the period when 
he attained the acme of constabulatory power and 
dignity by b6ing created high constable of this city 
and its suburbs ; and it may be remarked, in pass- 
ing, that the honorable the corporation, during their 
long and unsatisfactory career, never made an ap- 
pointment more creditable to themselves, more be- 
neficial to the city, more honorable to the country 
at large, more imposing in the eye of foreign 
nations, more disagreeable to all rogues, nor more 
gratifying to honest men, than that of the gentle- 
man whom we are biographizing, to the high office 
he now holds. His acuteness and vigilance have 
become proverbial ; and there is not a misdeed 
committed by any member of this community, but 
he is speedily admonished that he will " have old 
Hays [as he is affectionately and familiarly termed] 
after him." Indeed, it is supposed by many that 
he is gifted with supernatural attributes, and can 



BIOGRAPHY OF JACOB HAYS. 121 

see things that are hid from mortal ken ; or how, 
it is contended, is it possible that he should, as he 
does, 

'* Bring forth the secret'st rnan of blood V^ 

That he can discover " undivulged crime"~that 
when a store has been robbed, he, without stop or 
hesitation, can march directly to the house where 
the goods are concealed, and say, '• these are they" 
— or, when a gentleman's pocket has been picked, 
that, from a crowd of unsavory miscreants he can, 
with unerring judgment, lay his hand upon one 
and exclaim '* you're wanted !" — or how is it that 
he is gifted with that strange principle of ubiquity 
that makes him " here, and there, and everywhere" 
at the same moment? No matter how, so long as 
the pubhc reap the benefit ; and well may that 
public apostrophize him in the words of the poet : 

•' Long may he live ! our city's pride ! 

Where lives the rogue, but flies before him ! 
With trusty crabstick by his side, 

And staff of office waving o'er him." 

But it is principally as a literary man that we 
would speak of Mr. Hays. True, his poetry is 
" unwritten," as is also his prose ; and he has inva- 
riably expressed a decided contempt for philosophy, 

VOL. I. 11 



122 BIOGRAPHY OF JACOB HAYS. 

music, rhetoric, the belles lettresy the fine arts, and 
in fact all species of composition excepting bailiff ^s 
warrants and bills of indictment — but what of that 'I 
The constitution of his mind is, even unknown to 
himself, decidedly poetical. And here I may be 
allowed to avail myself of another peculiarity of 
modern biography, namely, that of describing a 
man by what he is not. Mr. Hays has not the 
graphic power or antiquarian lore of Sir Walter 
Scott — ^nor the glittering imagery or voluptuous 
tenderness of Moore — nor the deUcacy and polish 
of Rogers — nor the spirit of Campbell — nor the sen- 
timentalism of Miss Land on — nor the depth and 
purity of thought and intimate acquaintance with 
nature of Bryant — nor the brilliant style and play- 
ful humor of Halleck — no, he is more in the petit 
larceny manner of Crabbe, with a slight touch of 
Byronic power and gloom. He is familiarly ac- 
quainted with all those interesting scenes of vice 
and poverty so fondly dwelt upon by that reverend 
chronicler of little villany, and if ever he can be 
prevailed upon to publish, there will doubtless be 
found a remarkable similarity in their works. His 
height is about five feet seven inches, but who 
makes his clothes we have as yet been imable to 
ascertain. His countenance is strongly marked. 



BIOGRAPHY OF JACOB HAYS. 123 

and forcibly brings to mind the lines of Byron when 
describing his Corsair : 



There was a laughing devil in his sneer 
That raised emotions both of hate and fear ; 
And where his glance of " apprehension," fell, 
Hope withering fled, and mercy sighed, farewell! 

Yet with all his great qiiahties. it is to be doubted 
whether he is much to be envied. His situation 
certainly has its disadvantages. Pure and blame- 
less as his life is, his society is not courted — ho man 
boasts of his friendship, and few indeed like even 
to own him for an intimate acquaintance. Wher- 
ever he goes his slightest action is watched and cri- 
ticized ; and if he happen carelessly to lay his hand 
upon a gentleman's shoulder and whisper some- 
thing in his ear, even that man, as if there were 
contamination in his touch, is seldom or never seen 
afterwards in decent society. Such things cannot 
fail to prey upon his feelings. But when did ever 
greatness exist without some penalty attached 
to it? 

The first time that ever Hays was pointed out 
to me, was one summer afternoon, when acting 
in his official capacity in the city-hall. The room 
was crowded in every part, and as he entered with 
a luckless wretch in his gripe, a low suppressed 



124 BIOGRAPHY OF JACOB HAYS. 

murmur ran through the hall, as if some superior 
being had alighted in the midst of them. He 
placed the prisoner at the bar — a poor coatless in- 
dividual, with scarcely any edging and no roQf 
to his hat — to stand his trial for bigamy, and then, 
in a loud, authoritative tone, called out for " silence, '^ 
and there was silence. Again he spoke — '-hats off 
\here 1" and the multitude became uncovered ; after 
which he took his handkerchief out of his left-hand 
coat pocket, wiped his face, put it back again, 
looked sternly around, and then sat down. The 
scene was awful and impressive; but the odor 
was disagreeable in consequence of the heat acting 
upon a large quantity of animal matter congre- 
gated together. My olfactory organs were always 
lamentably acute : I was obliged to retire, and 
from that time to this, I have seen nothing, 
though 1 have heard much of the subject of this 
brief and imperfect, but, I trust, honest and impar- 
tial memoir. 

Health and happiness be with thee, thoii prince 
of constables — thou guardian of innocence — -thou 
terror of evil doers and little boys ! May thy years 
be many and thy sorrows few — may ihj life be 
like a long and cloudless summer's day, and may 
thy salary be increased ! And when at last the 



BIOGRAPHY OF JACOB HAYS. 125 

summons comes from which there is no escaping 
— when the warrant arrives upon which no bail 
can be put in — when thou thyself, that hast 
" wanted" so many, art in turn " wanted and 
must go,"' 

" May St thou fall 
Into the grave as softly as the leaves 
Of the sweet roses on an autnmn eve, 
Beneath the small sighs of the w estern wind. 
Drop to the earth !" 



LOVE OF CHANGE— HOUSE HUNTING. 

Man never is, but always to be blest. — Pope. 

There must be a great quantity of Dutch blood in 
this city, for the euphonious names of Vanbenscho- 
len, Yanvredenburgh, Vanvoorhis, Vanoutersturp, 
Vanschaick, Vanbokkehn, Vanmeerbeekie, Vogel- 
sang, Vonck, Volk, Vogt, &c. are to be met with in 
every street, and at every corner ; but in what street 
or at what corner are to be found the still and tranquil 
virtues, the sedate and circumspect demeanor, the 
profound love of ease and phlegmatic temperament 
of the ancient denizens of Manahatta ? In the good 
old times that have for ever passed away from this 
island, a man might be born, reared, married, . and 
buried within a circuit of three miles ; and a true 
Dutchman would as soon have thought of going to 
bed without his night-cap, as of chopping and 
changing about from one house to another. W^her- 
ever he first inhaled the breath of life, there he 
exhaled it. It was quite clear to his mind that 



HOUSE HUNTING. 12T 

'Providence had cast his lot in a certain street, and 
a certain house, and for him to think of emig-rating 
to another, would not only be presumptuously set- 
ting up his judgment against high authority, but a 
great waste of bodily exertion. Indeed, when he 
looked around, and saw all the furniture firmly 
fixed — the ponderous dresser — the solemn clock — 
the substantial table — ^just as his great-grandfather 
had placed them when the first ship first drifted 
from Holland to this coast, the idea of pulling them 
from their places, carrying them out into the open 
air, and setting them up in another domicile, seem- 
ed not only a sacrilegious disturbance of the house- 
hold gods, but an enterprise requiring so much toil 
and trouble, as to make it scarcely worth the while 
attempting, considering the short time that is allot- 
ted for man to sojourn in this world. So lived the 
forefathers of a goodly portion of .the present quick- 
silver generation. They worked when there was 
no help for it, and sat still whenever they could : 
they counted over their bright silver dollars (the 
only kind of change a Dutchman loves) and put 
them carefully away in their old stockings — they 
took their g'lass of genuine Schedam, they smoked 
their pipes in peace— 

'• They eat and drank and slept. What then ' 
They eat and drank and slept again." 



128 1-OVE OF CHANGE, 

And even so passed away the mortal existence of 
the forefathers of the identical Master Cicero Van- 
derscholten, that goes to masquerades and executes 
pigeon-wings and pirouettes with such grace and 
agility ; and so lived the progenitors of Miss Cecilia 
Ameha Anna Maria Vanwaggenen, that makes a 
noise on the piano, and keeps an album ! O tem- 
pora, O mores ! 

Of all the civilized nations on the face of the 
earth, the Americans seem to attach the least value 
to a " local habitation ;" and of all the parts of 
America, New-York is the most restless. Its citi- 
zens seem to be born with a feverish love of change 
and excitement, which pervades, more or less, every 
action of their lives, and to this they sacrifice 
friends, interest, and convenience. They put no 
faith in the proverb — " let well enough alone" — but 
are always ready to give up " well enough" in the 
desperate hope of getting something better. They 
must be in motion, and that motion is about as 
different from that of their Dutch ancestors as the 
motion of a duck pond on a calm day is from that of 
the rapids of Niagara. In business they are fickle to 
a degree that appears, and really is, heartless and 
unfeehng. They will give up a tradesman that 
has served them well and faithfully, and in whom 
they can place confidence, to run after some fresh 



HOUSE HUNTING. 129 

adventurer, of whom they know nothing. But 
this is the way all over the country : and a trades- 
man has in reaUty just as httle consideration- for 
his customers as his customers have for him. A 
man commences business in a small city ; in the 
course of time forms acquaintance and connexions, 
and finds himself getting along, as he says, " as 
comfortably as he can wish," when suddenly he 
hears of some new town that has sprung up in the 
wilderness, where they " are doing considerable of 
a business ;" and, without more to do, he sells off 
his stock, takes leave, without regret, of kind friends 
and familiar faces, and sets off to the land of pro- 
mise to run a similar career. This is a national 
trait, and does not attach, with any peculiar force, 
to this city ; but, for the love of change in their 
places of residence, the New-Yorkers are particu- 
larly famous. They never regard a house as a 
kind of inanimate friend — one who has protected 
them from cold, and rain, and tempest, and by 
whose hearth they have spent many happy hours, 
and enjoyed many comforts ; but merely as a tem- 
porary covering, under whose roof it would be a 
sin, shame, and a folly to live two years in succes- 
sion. Accordingly, on the first of May, when peo- 
ple all over the world are enjoying that charming 
season among fields and flowers, the sagacious 



130 LOVE OF CHANGE, 

citizens of New- York think they have lived quite 
long enough in one place, and prepare to pitch 
their tents elsewhere. Those that live up tow^n 
come down, and those that live down town go up ; 
and amidst disjointed furniture, broken crockery, 
dust, dirt, and vermin, they hail the genial approach 
of smiling May. After spending their money, losing 
their regular dinners, and suffocating themselves 
for three or four days, they squat down in their 
new domicile for another twelvemonth. 

But it is not only the miseries attending the com- 
mittal of the act itself, but also the preliminary 
ones which bespeak its approach, that are to be 
taken into account. There is a great and crying 
evil at present existent in this city, entitled, " house 
hunting," which disturbs the peace of families, and 
is productive of much scandal and other ill conse- 
quences. It appears that on the first day of Feb- 
ruary the householders notify their several land- 
lords that they have only one more quarter's rent 
to expect from them, and immediately after such 
notification, nearly all the tenements in the city 
are labelled " this house to let," inquire so and so. 
A stranger would naturally suppose that the plague, 
the yellow fever, or some tremendous evil was mo- 
mentarily expected, and that the inhabitants were 
about to seek safety, en masse, in flight. No such 



HOUSE HUNTING. 131 

thing ; but from that tune the proud boast, that " a 
man's house is his castle," no longer belongs to the 
citizens of New-York. A Spaniard's doors are not 
more open to the holy fathers of the inquisition, or 
a place-hunter's to a man in office, than are his to 
all the impertinent people who please to demand 
admittance. They march through his rooms, peep 
under his bed and into his closets, and not unfre- 
quently surprise him and his family in very equi- 
vocal situations ; after which, they express a hope 
that they have not disturbed them, to which they 
receive a lying answer in the affirmative — beg 
leave to trouble them " for a glass of cold water" 
— say they don't think the house will answer — 
and go about their business ; and the only satisfac- 
tion the poor people have, is to go unto their neigh- 
bor and do likewise. But this is not all. There 
is a nest of old maids in the city, who, having given 
up all hopes of ever being obliged to look after a 
house on their own account, kindly volunteer to do 
so for their friends, in order to indulge their pen- 
chant for inspecting their neighbor's affairs, and 
discuss the interesting tittle-tattle arising therefrom. 
Under various pretexts they pop their noses into 
every hole and corner of pantries, parlors, kitchens, 
and cupboards, and spy into the barrenness of the 
house ; and all this is noted down in a sort of diary, 



]32 LOVE OF CHANGE, 

to be used afterwards at visits and card parties, as 
occasion may require. I am slightly in the good 
graces of the niece of one of these ancient women, 
who favored me with a peep at her aunt's land log- 
bo<)k, from which I made the following extracts. 
For obvious reasons, the names of the people and 
numbers of the houses are omitted. 

February 5. — No. — Greenwich-street. Called 

at the house of Mrs. D . Rooms sm^ll — no 

garrets — wonder where the goodness all the children 
sleep. Carpets very shabby — remains of a turkey 
carefully put by in the pantry, and black woman 
making her dinner off cold mutton. Eldest Miss 
D. has a new silk pelisse — wonder where the money 
came from. Mem. The D.'s may be honest 
enough, but can't imagine how some people make 
a Uving ! 

Same day. — ^^No. — Broadway — looked in upon 
my dear friend Mrs. W — the house to let, going to 
take a larger one. Cut a great dash — hope it may 
last Mr. AV. is, to be sure, cashier of the — bank, 
but his salary cannot be much. Some how or 
other, people in banks never want money. Mem. 
If Mr. W. should be back in his accounts and com- 
mit suicide, which is not unlikely, what would be- 
come of poor dear Mrs. W. ? 



HOUSE HUNTING. 133 

February 17. — No. — Hudson-square. Fine 
looking house — great deal larger than what 1 want- • 
ed, but went in to see it. Mrs. M. not at home ; 
was shown through the house by Miss M. a poor 
white-faced creature, with her hair out of curl, who 
looked as if she had just got up. Recollected meet- 
ing a prettyish sort of girl by that name at Mrs. 
K.'s party last night. Found out it was the same — 
should never have known her ! Not quite so mucli 
color as she had when dancing last night — sup- 
pose she can get more when she wants it. (rood 
gracious ! how the poor men are deceived ! 

t!^ame day. — Went through the sausage manu- 
facturer's premises in the Bowery. Mem, Eat no 
more sausages, &c. &/C. 

It would be tedious to give more of these precious 
records ; suffice it to say, that there was scarcely a , 
house from the East river to the North, or from 
the Battery to the regions about Fourth- street, which 
had not been inspected by one or more of these 
scandalous old women, who meet at night and com- 
pare notes ; and not a single kind remark or 
charitable supposition was ventured upon by any 
one of them. They went altogether on Sir Peter 
Teazle's principle, " that it was a bad world, and 
the fewer that speak well of it the better." 

VOL. I. 12 



134 LOVE OF CHANGE, 

But this is by no means the only evil to which 
the citizens subject themselves by this love of 
change. They are innumerable ; and, perhaps, 
one of the heaviest is the injury done to the periodi- 
cal literature of the country. A man will subscribe 
for a paper or a magazine, with which he professes 
to be agreeably entertained and well satisfied; 
but if any new^^dventurer spring up, ancl promise 
impossibilities in a flaming prospectus, he straight- 
way relinquishes that which he knows to be good, 
for the chance of getting something better ; and 
this, in its turn, is thrown aside for fresh experi- 
ments! In no country are there so many and such 
abortive attempts to get up fresh publications, and 
this, in a great degree, accounts for it. Of the ma- 
jority it cannot be said, that 

" 'Tis pity they're short-lived." 

They do no good and much harm ; for by diverting 
public patronage into so many channels, all are 
inadequately rewarded, and hence the poor state of 
the public press generally, compared with other 
countries. In all sorts of business it is precisely 
the same. If a man finds that past endeavors are 
no security for future favors, he naturally relaxes 
in those endeavors, and will as soon sell a bad arti- 
cle as a good one, when there is an equal chance of 



HOUSE HUNTING. 135 

his customer returning ; thus, the evils which the 
buyers inflict upon the sellers in the first instance, 
eventually return upon themselves, and no one 
gains by those proceedings but those who, under a 
better state of things, would be neglected entirely. 

But what avails talking ? What can be expected 
from the inhabitants, when the " fathers of the city" 
set them such examples ? The people move them- 
selves, but the corporation move the houses. Their 
committee come and squint along a street, and then 
say unto a man, " Sir, you must shift your house 
sixteen feet back !" Shade of Wouter Von T wilier ! 
shift a house ! What would a genuine Dutchman 
think of such a proceeding ; or, indeed, any Euro- 
pean ? A little Frenchman, fresh from Paris, who 
thought every thing on earth was to be seen there, 
lately witnessed a performance of this kind. He 
was met by a friend soon after, in a high state of 
excitation. " Oh, mon dieu !" said he, " I have 
see what in Paris I nevare have see — nevare ! I 
have see one house taking one leetle valk ! — Mon 
dieu !" But the evil may not stop here. In time 
streets and squares may be found traveling about 
the city, and it is not impossible that a man may 
be run over by a church. 



HYPOCHONDRIACISM. 



O wad some power the giftie gie us, 
To see oursels as ithers see us ! 
It wad frae monie a blunder free us, 

An' foolish notion ; 
What airs in dress an' gait wadlea'e us, 

An' e'en devotion ! — Bums. 



Hypochondriacism is a disorder produced by the 
disorganization of the nervous system, whereby the 
patient ceases to view things as they exist, and ac- 
quires the property of seeing others that have no 
existence. His faculties become changed, and he 
regards chimeras as reaUties, and reaUties as chi- 
meras. On all points excepting one, a hypochon- 
driac may be perfectly sane, but on that one he 
looks upon the rest of the world as fools, and him- 
self as the only person to whom heaven has given 
light. There are many shades of this disorder, and 
the ways in which it manifests itself are innumera- 
ble. Doctor Johnson gives a very meagre defini- 
tion of a hypochondriac when he says it is " one 



HYPOCHONDRIACISM. 137 

affected with melancholy." Now, though in some 
instances this may be the primary cause, in nine 
cases out of ten it is the offspring of vanity and ig- 
norance, w4iich, secreting themselves in a man's 
brain, engender there strange and overweening no- 
tions of his own quahties and capabiHties ; this, in 
the first stage of the disorder, is termed self-conceit, 
but swelling beyond all imaginable or endurable 
bounds, it becomes at last a confirmed case of men- 
tal delusion, and takes the form of medical, legal^ 
religious, political, or literary hypochondriacism. 

One of the pecuharities of this disease is the 
manner in which those who are affected with it 
laugh and jeer at all who are in a similar predica- 
ment with themselves — the quickness with which 
they detect their neighbor's infirmities, and the ob- 
stinacy with which they shut their eyes to their 
own. Thus, a well-informed gentleman, who eat, 
drank, slept, and behaved himself like other people, 
could never get over the strange belief that he was 
a barleycorn, and at the mere sight of a barn-yard 
fowl he would fly into his house and lock himself 
in, for fear of being picked up and transferred 
to the crop of his enemy ; yet the same gentle- 
man was very much tickled with the story of 
another hypochondriac, who in walking imagined 
that he did not possess the power of turning, but 

12* 



138 HYPOCHONDRIACISM. 

must of necessity move on in a direct line, and who 
had cut himself severely by marching straight 
through a shop window w^hich unfortunately 
crossed his way — just as one foolish hypochon- 
driacal author will laugh at another's expectations 
of immortality; although at the same time he 
does not entertain a doubt of its being his own. 
inheritance. I knew a profound scholar, and what 
is more, a sensible man, but w^ho, nevertheless, 
insisted that he was cursed with a cast-iron nose. 
No arguments could convince him of the fallacy of 
what he considered so self-evident that it might be 
observed by any one \ and when a storm of thun- 
der and lightning occurred, he w^as to be seen run- 
ning about in an agony of fear, and using all sorts 
of precautions to prevent his metal proboscis from at- 
tracting the electric fluid ; after the storm he would 
regain his composure, and thank heaven for his 
remarkable deliverance. A friend, to cure him of 
this fancy, told him of another person who ima- 
gined he had a glass nose, and was afraid of going 
out on a windy day for fear of getting it injured^, 
at which he laughed immoderately, and proceeded 
to show very plainly that no man ever had, or could 
by any possibility have a glass nose. The other 
then began gently to insinuate doubts respecting 
the existence of any metallic substance on his 



HYPOCHONDRIACISM. I39 

own face, upon which he grew mightily offend- 
ed, hit his nose a sharp blow, and asked him if he 
could not hear it was cast-iron by the sound ! This 
would all seem lidiculous enough to a spectator, 
but how many hundred thousands are there in this 
world who terrify themselves with evils just as ima- 
ginary as cast-metal noses, yet at the same time 
laugh heartily at the fears of those who enter- 
tain apprehensions for their glass ones ? but because 
their numbers are such as to keep each other in 
countenance, they escape the charge of hypochon- 
driacism which manifestly attaches to them. 

Of all classes of hypochondriacs, the health-pre- 
serving are perhaps the most numerous and noto- 
rious. These are the people for whom heaven has 
not been able to make any thing fit to eat. Every 
dish that is set upon the table is, according to their 
view of things, impregnated with subtle poison. 
One produces flatulency, another acidity — beef is 
indigestible, ham is bilious, tea nervous, and so on 
from the simplest receipt in Dr. Kitchiner's cookery 
to the most compHcated effort of Mons. Ude. When- 
ever they eat they say, " I know it is wrong ;" and 
look upon a person who makes a hearty, careless, 
miscellaneous meal, as one who is not long for this 
world. All their conversation turns upoiflheir in- 
ternal concerns ; and, in company, they favor the 



140 HYPOCHONDRIACISM. 

unfortunate lady or gentleman who sits next then:i 
with anecdotes of their stomach and digestive remi- 
niscences for the last three weeks. They are ama- 
teurs in physic, and swallow all sorts of abomina- 
tions with infinite relish ; and then they wonder^ 
for all the care they take of themselves, that they 
are no better. Poor wretches ! the undertaker eyes 
them as he walks along ; the coflfin-maker takes 
their dimensions in his " mind's eye," and proceeds 
to make their mahogany resting-places on specula- 
tion ; the sexton chuckles at their approach, and 
says he hopes he " see's them well !" the resurrec- 
tionist marks them for his own ; and the surgeon, 
surveying their formation with a scientific eye, 
longs to settle some disputed points of anatomy by 
means of their unfortunate bodies. Death comes 
at last and pops the little life out of them that diet- 
ing and doctoring have left, and they are troubled 
with hypochondriacism no more ! 

Literary, as well as health-preserving hypochon- 
driacism, is not unfrequently occasioned by a slight 
touch of dyspepsia. Young gentlemen with yellow 
faces and weak digestions, mistake the sickly fan- 
cies produced by a diseased state of the humors for 
the coruscations of genius, and whenever they feel 
a little unwell, concoct what they call poetry, which 
is merely a number of hypochondriacal notions 



HYPOCHONDRIACISM. t41 

strung together, in which they abuse the " unfeel- 
ing world," and long for " pleasant death," and the 
" quiet peaceful grave," at the same time that they 
are taking their spring physic, and using all neces- 
sary precautions to avoid one and keep out of the 
other as long as possible. They poetize somewhat 
after this fashion : 

My burning brow — my burning brow ! — 
My bursting heart — my mad'ning brain! 

Would — would — that ye were quiet now, 
And I at rest from all my pain ! 

The grave — the grave ! — how calm they sleep 
Who lie where yonder yew-trees wave ! 

They neither sob, nor cry, nor weep — 
Oh give me that — the grave ! the grave I 

and such like abominable nonsense, which many 
people call " very pretty," and " very pathetic," and 
so they come all at once to believe themselves poets, 
and go on wishing themselves dead, until people of 
common sense would have no objection if they 
were taken at their word. One of the most ab- 
surd peculiarities of this tribe is, their invariably 
assuming that physical imbecility and mental 
strength go together, and vice versa, as if a sound 
constitution, a cheerful temper, and a vigorous and 
imaginative mind were incompatible. William 
Shakspeare, Walter Scott, and Robert Burns were, 
in their several ways, the three greatest men that 



142 HYPOCHONDRIACISM. 

ever lived, and at the same time three as healthy, 
hearty, and merry fellows, as the world has seen, 
and never wrote a line of regular churchyard poe- 
try in their lives. 

Pohtical hypochondriacs are as thick as flies at 
midsummer, and are more headstrong, absurd, and 
obstinate, than any of the other classes. No matter 
how monstrous their dogmas are, the pertinacity 
with which they cling to them leaves the man with 
the cast-iron nose far behind. A member of the 
English parliament got it into his head, and all the 
other members could not get it out, that the great 
cause of distress among the poor was the plentiful- 
ness of the grain harvests, that starvation was a 
necessary consequence of over-production, and the 
more Avheat there was grown the less there would 
be eaten. In this country certain people advocate a 
tariff that will increase commerce and support the 
navy, by doing away with the necessity for ships 
and sailors ; while others believe in a dissolution of 
society, in consequence of a few men, calling them- 
selves masons, getting together in a snug room, for 
the purpose of singing and drinking without fear of 
interruption. Indeed, there is no notion too impro- 
bable to find its way into the head of a political 
hypochondriac. Many well-meaning individuals 
firmly believed as soon as General Jackson became 



HYPOCHONDRIACISM. 143 

president, that men would hang on trees as thick 
as acorns, that he would fire the city of Washing- 
ton, destroy the constitution of the United States, 
put the country under martial law, keep his hand 
in practice by shooting a dozen citizens or so of a 
morning before breakfast, and do a number of other 
improper things for reasons best known to himself; 
and when they are told that no such thing has hap- 
pened, they very wisely shake their heads, and say 
the ides of March are not yet over. There is 
another set of poHtical hypochondriacs who credit 
whatever the newspapers tell them, and of course 
are worse than all the rest put together. 

Then there are the religious hypochondriacs, 
who firmly believe that no one can be in the right 
except themselves — 

Some think on Calvin heaven's own spirit fell, 
While others deem him instrument of hell. 

But this is ticklish ground. In theatricals the cases 
of hypochondriacism are innumerable, and generally 
incurable. I have seen matrons of forty-five years 
of age and one hundred and fifty pounds weight, 
who really thought they looked and played the 
girlish Juliet to perfection, and whom no criti- 
cism could convince to the contrary ; and I have 
seen a little fat fellow of five feet and an inch, who 



144 HYPOCHONDRIACISM. 

looked upon himself as the beau ideal of Roman 

grandem- and dignity. I have seen Miss fancy 

she could play a fashionable lady, and Mr. 

imagine that he looked like a gentleman. I have 
seen— but cases multiply too fast. 

The greatest hypochondriac of modern times, 
however, is undoubtedly Robert Owen. This very 
singular individual has taken it into his head, that 
by means of certain strange doctrines which have 
the immediate effect of crazing the intellects of 
those who dabble in them, the. world is to be rege- 
nerated, and the perfectability of human nature ac- 
comphshed. He actually believes the time is coming 
when men will not lie, nor women flirt — when 
banks will not break nor bills be protested — when 
tailors will keep their words and gentlemen pay 
their debts — when brokers will be generous and 
politicians independent— when a man will love his 
neighbor as himself, and lend him money without 
interest or security — when Cobbett will be consis- 
tent and Lady Morgan unaffected, and other things 
equally strange and improbable. This is the great- 
est case of hypochondriacism on record, either 
moral or medical, and any man who will believe 
these things, will believe that the world is 'growing 
honester. 



IDLE PEOPLE. 

Under the greenwood tree 
Who loves to lie with me, 
And tune his merry note 
Unto the sweet bird's throat, 
Come hither, come hither, come hither ! 
Here shall he see 
No enemy, 
But winter and rough weather. — Shaks. 

There is no class of human beings visited with 
more matter-of-course vituperation than idle peo- 
ple. Idleness ! it is the greatest vice of civiliza- 
tion, for it is the least profitable. Men may lie. 
and cheat, and game, and drink, and break the ten 
commandments in whatsoever way they please, 
and they will find apologists ; but for idleness, no 
one lifteth up his voice to speak. From the busy 
haunts of men, from the toil and turmoil of the 
marts of trafl&c, from the din and smoke of manu- 
factories, from the high courts of Mammon, it is for 
ever banished : only on the pleasant hill side, in 
the waving meadow, and under the ancient forest 

VOL. T. 13 



146 IDLE PEOPLE. 

trees, or by the babbling brook and lazy river hath 
it sought out an undisturbed retreat; and there its 
devotee is to be found, stretched luxuriously along 
the green sward, worshipping his divinity after his 
own calm and easy fashion. Foolish fellow ! up 
and away unto the crowded city, for there money, 
" the white man's god," is to be made— spend thy 
days in bargaining and wrangling and over-reach- 
ing, and thy nights in scheming and calculating 
until thou art worth a milhon ! but rest not, relax 
not, toil and bargain and wrangle on, and thou 
may est yet be worth a miUion and a half! and then 
if death some morning put a stop unto thy profita- 
ble speculations, think, for all thy care and anxiety 
— thy joyless days and sleepless nights — what a 
glorious consolation is thine ! The poor idler goes 
to his grave not worth a groat, while thou descend- 
est to thine everlasting rest with more money in- 
vested in the funds than any man on 'change! 

" Idleness," saith the proverb, " is the mother of 
mischief." How strain ge that such a noisy brawl- 
ing urchin should spring from so inoffensive a pa- 
rent ! For my own part, I have a respect for idle 
people ; and, when no one suffers by their idleness, 
they are the most sensible people on the face of the 
earth — your only true philosophers. Love of ease 
is natural to man, and industry came into the world 



IDLE PEOPLE. 147 

with original sin. Hard work occasioned the first 
murder. If Cain, instead of tilling the stubborn 
earth and earning his bread •' by the sweat of his 
brow,*' had had nothing to do but lounge on the 
mountain-side like his brother Abel, play his pipe, 
watch his sheep feeding, and then feed himself, he 
would never have envied him, and the second great 
transgression would not have come to pass. 

That idleness is the natural state of man, cannot 
be doubted. Like the flowers of the field it spring- 
eth up without care or culture ; but industry is a 
hot-house plant, of forced and artificial growth, and 
is apt to wither away, if not anxiously tended and 
cherished. In asserting these undeniable truths, 
let it not be supposed that any reproach is meant 
to be cast on the industrious. No — the man who 
sacrifices his love of ease, and labors unremittingly 
that his wife may be at rest, and his little ones 
comfortably clothed and fed — that he may be free 
from duns and debts, and walk through the world 
fearing. and beholden to no living creature — such a 
man is worthy of all admiration. But there are 
others, who have enough and to spare, but still go 
on — the slaves of avarice and habit ; who dig- 
nify their love of gain with the name of industry, 
and plume themselves mightily on " never being a 
single minute idle ;" why what are they at best but 



148 IDLE PEOPLE. 

miserable earth-worms — voluntary bondmen ; the 
worldly wise, and yet the most egregious fools ! 

One thing that has undeservedly brought idle- 
ness into bad repute, is the confounding it with 
laziness, than which no two things can be more 
different. The lazy sluggard who hates motion in 
every shape, and lies upon the earth an inert piece 
of animation, is scarcely upon a par with the beasts 
that perish. A fine specimen of this tribe was a 
fat old gentleman of this city, a prodigious eater, 
who, in the summer time, used to sit, by the day 
together, smoking and steaming like a caldron. 
The only exercise he was ever known to take con- 
sisted in calling out, after he had sat on one seat 
long enough to make it uncomfoiLably warm, 
" John, bring me a cool chair !" and then moving 
from one chair to the other. Now idle people are 
the very reverse of this. In all sorts of games and 
sports they are first and foremost. It is they who 
can pitch a quoit or bowl a cricket-ball straighter 
and truer than any one else ; the swiftest runners 
and most active wrestlers of the district. It is they 
who have roamed the country far and wide, and 
know where the finest fishing streams are to be 
found, and where the birds are most plentiful — the 
healthiest, hardiest, and most venturesome of hea- 
ven's creatures ; who will scramble up a precipice^ 



IDLE PEOPLE. 149 

and risk their necks for a bird's nest, but droop and 
pine away under a regular routine of money-mak- 
ing tasks. There are, however, different varieties 
of this species, like every other. Some of a more 
contemplative turn, who seek out the pleasant nooks 
and shady places, known but to themselves, and 
there muse aw^ay their hours. These are intimate 
acquaintances of nature, and are initiated into thou- 
sands of her little secrets that others know not of ; 
and with Shakspeare in their hand, they read un- 
folded mysteries of mind and matter, that seem, 
and are, not the records of observation, but the out- 
pourings of inspiration. Such an one w^as Jaques, 
though rather too cynical ; and, at times, even such 
an one must Shakspeare have been. It appears im- 
possible that the scenes in the forest of Arden could 
have been engendered any where except " under 
the shade of melancholy boughs." So thoroughly 
are they imbued with a true pastoral spirit, so free 
from the noise and smoke of cities, that it is really 
strange, after reading " As you like it," with your 
mind filled Avith images of lonely forest walks, and 
their denizens the duke of Amiens and his " co- 
mates and brothers in exile," to w^alk to the win- 
dow and see so many streets, houses, carriages, and 
fantastically dressed men and women. How pitia- 
ble would he be who could afford to dream away 

13* 



150 IDLE PEOPLE. 

hours amid such scenes, and yet who should for- 
sake them 

" For so much dross as may be grasped thus !" 

Yet idle people are looked upon as the very worst 
and " most good-for-nothing" people in existence. 
They are under the ban of society. The worldly 
father points them out to his son as a warning, and 
the prudent mother watches that her marriageable 
daughter's eye rests not on them ; their names are 
stricken from invitation lists ; and every griping^ 
scoundrel twitteth them and vaunteth his superior 
pack-horse qualifications. And for what? — why, 
their comparative poverty and practical philosophy. 
Yet they are in one sense the wealthiest of men, 

" Poor and content, is rich, and rich enough ; 
But riches, fineless, is as poor as winter 
To him that ever fears he shall be poor." 

In towns a person of this temperament is altoge- 
ther out of his element. He is a connoisseur in 
sweet, wholesome air, and sighs to rove about in 
search of it. As long as the grizzly tyrant winter 
keeps the fair spring in chains, it matters little 
where he is ; but when one of those glorious days 
that herald her approach breaks forth, and nature 
becomes, on the instant, all life and animation, 
there are few men, let them be as industrious as 



IDLE PEOPLE. 151 

they may, who have not experienced his feehngs. 
Who, on such a day, has not felt a pleasing languor 
steal over him, and a distaste for ordinary pursuits 
and avocations ? Who does not long to leave the 
hubbub of the city far behind, to stroll forth into 
the fields, and have the taint of the smoke blown 
off by the fresh April winds ? and who would not 
do so if 



" Necessity, the master still of will, 
How strong soe'er it is," 



did not drag him back to his toils ? Oh ! what a 
clog it is on a man's spirit to feel that he is a slave 
— (for what are they but slaves with the privilege 
of change, whose daily labor buys their daily bread?) 
— to long for liberty, yet feel that the pure air, the 
green fields, the blue sky, the very commonest gifts 
of nature, that are enjoyed by the brutes of the 
earth and the birds of the air, are denied to him ? 
True, he may break through all restraints and go 
about inhaling as much fresh air as he pleases ; 
but when the cravings of appetite hint to him that 
it is dinner time, whence are to come the victuals 
that constitute that important item in the sum total 
of human happiness ? Man is unfortunately a car- 
nivorous animal, and must, once a day at least, be 
fed with flesh, fowl, or fish : he cannot make an 



152 IDLE PEOPLE. 

unsophisticated repast off the roots and fruits of 
the earth, for though 

" his anatomical construction 
Bears vegetables in a gi'umbling sort of way 
Yet certainly he thinks, beyond all question, 
Beef, veal, and mutton easier of digestion." 

Then why are idle people, who can afford to be 
so without wrong to any one, so hardly dealt with, 
when all men, deserving the name, would be idle 
if they could ? Who ever knew a creature that 
made use of the too-common expression, " I am 
never easy unless I am doing something," that was 
worth passing an hour with, or that showed the 
slightest symptoms of having a soul ? He cannot 
be easy without doing something, merely because 
he :jannot hold communion with himself; he has 
no treasures of thought to which he can revert, 
and his mind preys upon itself unless exercised in 
the miserable distinctions and petty gains and tri- 
umphs of business, which is at best but a necessary 
evil. With a few exceptions, I much admire the 
state of things that the old courtier in the Tempest 
proposes to introduce into the enchanted island if 
he were king of it — 



"No kind of traffic 
Would I admit ; no name of magistrate ; 
Letters should not be known ; no use of service, 



IDLE PEOPLE. 153 

Of riches, or of poverty ; no contracts, 

Successions ; bound of land, tilth, vineyard, none : 

No use of metal, corn, or wine, or oil ; 

No occupation ; all men idle, all ; 

And women too ; but innocent and pure. 

All things in common nature should produce 

Without sweat or endeavor ; treason, felony. 

Sword, pike, knife, gun, or need of any engine, 

Would I not have ; but nature should bring forth 

Of its own kind, all foison, all abundance. 

To feed my innocent people." 



PRIZE TRAGEDIES. 

In days of yore Melpomene was a proud and 
haughty dame, who had to be long and ardently 
wooed before she would vouchsafe her company to 
any one ; she was like one of those fair, unreason- 
able damsels in the age of chivalry, for whose sake 
a man had to endure much abstinence, penance, 
and mortification before he was rewarded with the 
slightest degree of familiarity ; but now sh§ is trans- 
formed into a mere modern miss, who will flirt and 
keep company with all who take the trouble of ask- 
ing her. And then both she and her votaries have 
become mercenary. In former times it was " the 
divinity which stirred within them" that prompted 
tragic poets to the creation of those mighty works 
that have spread a halo around their names ; now 
it is a mere matter of dollars and cents : ours serve 
for hire, and undertake to manufacture tragedies on 
any given subject that may be dictated to them. 
On one point, however, they have decidedly the 



PRIZE TRAGEDIES. I55 

advantage ; if the ancients were superior to the 
moderns in strength, they are far inferior in pro- 
ductiveness ; and an author now Utters more Ute- 
rary offspring in a year, than three or four could 
formerly bring forth in ten ; but what is produced 
with so little trouble and in such abundance, is 
sickly and short-lived ; whilst the rare, but healthy, 
hardy offspring of the intellects of other years still 
continue to bloom and " flourish in immortal 
youth.'' 

The great point of inferiority of the ancients to 
us was their ignorance of machinery, the disco- 
veries in which we have applied admirably both to 
physics and literature. Our forefathers were in 
bodily strength immensely superior to the present 
slim gen^ation ; yet by the aid of engines we can 
do more in an hour than they could in a year. So 
it is with the drama. They were giants in intel- 
lect, and a tragedy was with them a tremendous 
mental struggle and victory ; with us it is a mere 
mechanical affair. The matter is a trifle, the man- 
ner all in all. We take an interesting anecdote, 
put it into turgid blank verse, inflate it with bom- 
bast and epithets, divide and subdivide it into acts 
and scenes, and, by the aid of machinery, scenery, 
dresses and decorations, make it go off with more 
noise and eclat than can be produced by the most 



156 PRIZE TRAGEDIES. 

striking and wonderful delineations of human pas- 
sion. The curious anatomy of the heart of man is 
not half so imposing as the intricacies of a " grand 
tramp march ;" and a prolonged mock combat and 
pantomimic style of giving up the ghost are superior 
to the very finest poetry. This is not idle com- 
plaining. It is so, and will always be so, as long 
as show is preferred to sense ; and such things have 
probably been much in vogue ever since Thespis 
played upon a cart, though it was reserved for the 
present age to be exclusively devoted to them. The 
" good old times" is now generally allowed to be a 
misnomer, and it is foolish to affect to lament over 
them. The world has greatly improved since 
then ; but certainly in most things connected with 
the drama we have retrograded lamentably. Mo- 
dern comedies are poor enough ; but from two- 
thirds of modern tragedies, there is no affectation in 
saying " heaven deliver us 1"* 

The literature of these United States has been 
made the subject of taunt and ridicule ; and it is to 
be wondered that such has so long been the case 
when the means of remedying the defect were so 
easy. It appears that at any time authors can be 



* This is meant to apply generally, and not to prize tragedies in par- 
ticular, much less to any single production. 



PRIZE TRAGEDIES. \^ 

forced into existence as easily as mushrooms ; and it 
is really curious to observe, as soon as a five hun- 
dred dollar premium is offered, what a flood of 
inspiration deluges the whole land ! The mere 
reading of the advertisements created hundreds of 
tragic poets who never before dreamt of such a 
thing ; and a speculator in quills realized a very 
handsome profit by buying up all the stock within 
his reach on the first announcement of the busi- 
ness. The ploughman quitted his plough and 
wrote a tragedy, the drygood-clerks neglected their 
customers and wrote tragedies, the frequenters of 
ten-pin alleys, and similar elegant places of resort, 
stayed at home o' nights and wrote tragedies ; and 
it is understood that some of them were the most 
unique things of their kind that were ever submit- 
ted to the eye of man. To say nothing of the 
grammar or the chirography, the violations of the 
simple rules of Webster's spelHng book w^ere griev- 
ous in the extreme ; and towards the latter end of 
the fifth act 

" Murders were done too terrible for the ear." 

In some instances the carnage was immense. — 
Two or three of the much-enduring committee have 
scarcely recovered from the shock which their intel- 
lects received, and yet retain a perfectly excusable 

VOL. I. 14 



158 PRIZE TRAGEDIES, 

and natural antipathy for the very name of tragedy. 
Considering the manner in which they had to addle 
their brains by perusing all this perilous stuff, there 
ought certainly to have been a benefit for the remu- 
neration of the sufferers — that is, the committee. 
This was the prevailing character of the pieces^ 
the authors of whom had taken for their guide 
Othello's exclamation, " blood, blood, lago !" and 
cut short the mortal career of their dramatis per- 
sonae with the most unrelenting pens. Others 
there were of a more lady-like and lachrymatory 
turn, who dealt in 

" Taffeta phrases, silken terms precise, 
Three-piled hyperbole, spruce affectation," 

and preferred tears to blood ; but they also, in self- 
defence, were obliged to make away with a great 
number, as the depth of a tragedy now-a-days de- 
pends upon the mortality that takes place among 
the persons brought together ; consequently there 
is twice as strong an infusion of the tragic in a play 
where ten people are killed, as there is where only 
five expire. Soldiers, citizens, peasants, and such 
plebeian parts as are enacted by supernumera- 
ries whose names are not in the bills, are, howe- 
ver, not taken into account ; just as in real life, a 
great outcry is made about a dead general, while 



PRIZE TRAGEDIES. 159 

the rank and file rot quietly away without any thing 
being said about the matter. 

But Mr. Forrest, Mr. Forrest, what excuse can be 
made for thee ? Thou who didst profess to admire 
the Indian character, and venerate their great and 
noble qualities. Was it well done in thee to single 
out this persecuted race of beings from the na- 
tions and communities of men on the face of the 
earth, as fit subjects to be hacked and tortured by 
all the poverty-stricken and unfledged poets in the 
country ? •' Call you this backing your friends ?" 
Is it not enough that they have been ruthlessly 
driven from house and home, that their lands have 
been forcibly wrested from them, and the graves of 
their fathers violated, but you must, by holding 
out a five hundred dollar inducement, hound on all 
sorts of people to dramatize the lives of their war- 
riors, and put into the mouths of their sachems and 
orators, bad grammar and bombast, which when 
living they would have blushed to utter? Think, 
Mr. Forrest, of the number of noble chiefs that have 
been resuscitated through your means, and trans- 
formed into senseless ranting braggadocios. They 
may not, to be sure, appear in public ; but will not 
their several vainglorious authors distribute the 
manuscripts of their unsuccessful efforts among 
their friends and connexions all over the country, 



160 PRIZE TRAGEDIES, 

merely to show the incapacity of the committee, 
thus rendering the Indian character ridiculous, and 
adding, as it were, insult to injury ? If you want 
more prize tragedies, make the affair general, give 
the money to the best, but play all that are sent, 
and let us have a laugh at the whole world. Make 
no more invidious selections, but let tliere be clas- 
sic victims, Grecians and Romans, of whom anti- 
quity furnishes an inexhaustible supply. Besides, 
it would be a very difficult matter to make another 
aboriginal tragedy. Indianisms, such as " smok- 
ing the pipe of peace," and keeping the " chain of 
friendship bright," sound very well when judiciously 
and sparingly introduced ; but it does not answer 
to compound many long speeches entirely of such 
figurative fragments. 



OYSTERS. 

Man has been styled a speaking animal, a laugh- 
ing animal, a bargaining animal, and a drunken 
animal, in contradistinction to all other animals who 
neither speak, nor laugh, nor bargain, nor get 
drunk ; but a cooking animal seems after all to be 
his most characteristic and distinguishing appella- 
tion. In the important art of cooking victuals he 
shines pre-eminent ; here he taxes all his facul- 
ties, racks his invention, and gives unbounded 
range to his imagination. Nature has given to 
every other animal a peculiar taste, and furnished 
three or four kinds of food to suit that taste, but 
this sense in man accommodates itself to an innu- 
merable quantity of materials. He has made co- 
pious selections from all things that dwell upon the 
face of the globe — from the birds of the air, from 
the fish of the sea, from the inhabitants of lake and 
river, yea, from the bowels of the earth has he ex- 
tracted substances to minister to his palate, and the 

14* 



^g2 OYSTERS. 

whole mineral and vegetable world has been ran- 
sacked with indefatigable industry for its gratifica- 
tion. Thousands of his species pass their lives in 
dreary mines to send forth the simple but indispen- 
sable salt with which he seasons his viands ; while 
others fit out frail vessels, and amid storm and tem- 
pest, traverse the wilderness of waters for certain 
spices that add piquancy to a favorite dish ! But 
after he has collected all the products of the world 
together, that is only the commencement — the pre- 
liminary mustering of his forces. What are all 
these materials collectively to the innumerable, the 
inconceivable quantity of dishes which he manufac- 
tures from them by skilful combinations or incongru- 
ous mixtures ? Twelve figures can be set down in 
thousands of different ways and no two alike ; then 
out of those millions of primitive substaifbes, what 
countless quintillions of dishes can he not com- 
pound ! whilst every day new secrets are brought 
to light and added to the limitless list of gastrono- 
mic discoveries. 

The ancients knew something as regarded these 
matters ; but still they seemed to have studied 
expense and vanity more than real gratification. 
There are few that have not heard of the extrava- 
gances of an Heliogabalus, his brains of flamingos, 
his tongues of nightingales, and his heads of 



OYSTERS. 153 

ostriches, six hundred of which were served up in 
a single dish, and for which single dish the deserts 
of Arabia must have been scoured and desolated — 
but there is no ingenuity in this, nothing remark- 
able, save its monstrous folly. At a later period 
the art took a more complex form. In 1577 the 
abstemious cardinal, Ascanius Colonna, gave an 
entertainment to the prince of Nassau, when the 
following unique ollajpodrida was produced, which 
was looked upon as one of the greatest achieve- 
ments of the times, and was so admired and lauded 
by all who partook of it, that a certain holy father 
present at the feast, composed a Latin ode upon it, 
and handed the receipt down to an ungrateful pos- 
terity, who refuse to avail themselves of this chef 
6!(Biivre in the annals of cookery. The ingre- 
dients were " ten pounds of beef, three pounds of a 
pig, six wood pigeons, one pound of truffles, six 
thrushes, one capon, three pounds of turnips, six 
handsfull of green fennel seed, two pounds of sau- 
sages composed of curious materials, one pound of 
pepper, six onions, twelve larks, three lobsters, 
seven lampreys, four choice cardoons, (a vegetable 
resembling celery) two heads of Bologna cabbage, 
three pounds of tallow, spices, salt, sugar, and othel' 
seasonings." How stomachs were constructed in 
those days it is not stated. 



1154 OYSTERS. 

The United States possess an advantage over all 
the nations of the earth in two things highly con- 
ducive to human happiness — oysters and peaches. 
Men may disagree about forms of government, or 
the fine arts, or the relative merits of poets, paint- 
ers, and actors ; and whether they are right or 
wrong, may be perfectly sincere and well-meaning 
in their opinions ; but whoever denies the complete 
supremacy of the oysters and peaches of this part 
of the w^orlcl, must be given over as incurably 
infected with prejudice and perverseness. The 
peaches of England are nothing, and the oysters, 
generally speaking, no more to be compared to 
these, than a crab-apple to a pippin ; though there 
ought to be an especial reservation made in favor of 
what is called the " Colchester native," the flavor of 
which must dwell in the grateful remembrance of 
all who have had the good fortune to taste them ; 
they are uncommonly sweet, but small — a very 
choice oyster for ladies : but when taken into a 
tolerably capacious mouth, do not touch the palate 
at every point — there is still something wanting, 
and you do not experience that unalloyed gratifica- 
tion, that fulness of delight which is the necessary 
consequence of swallowing a large, fresh, fat, York- 
bay oyster. So extremely grateful are the latter to 
all who truly appreciate their estimable qualities, 



OYSTERS. j[g5 

that every additional one only creates a keener 
desire for its successor. 



" As if increase of appetite had grown 
By what it fed on," 



until the stomach signifies its incapacity to receive 
a farther supply of the luscious and delectable food. 
Man is naturally a self-opiniated contrary animal, 
and feels a natural inchnation to disagree with his 
species on all earthly questions ; but still he divides 
into parties and subdivides into factions, and it is 
possible to find half a dozen people who have the 
same views in politics, rehgion, and literature ; but 
perhaps no two were ever formed since the creation 
with exactly the same tenets respecting the stomach. 
They may hold on together for some time, and 
confess that they both like boiled salmon or roast 
ducks ; but let them speak upon the subject of eat- 
ing for a quarter of an hour, and a hundred minute 
but important difTerences of taste discover them- 
selves. Indeed, two men alike in this respect would 
be a much greater rarity than the two Dromios. 
There are few points on which there is a more una- 
nimous opinion entertained than oysters. All agree 
as to their virtues in the first instance ; but whe- 
ther they are best raw, or stewed, or fried, or broil- 
ed, or pickled, is the subject of endless cavillings, 
and interminable harangues. The longest dispute 



Xeg OYSTERS. 

I ever listened to was Avhether it was best to devour 
these creatures with black pepper or red ; and such 
was the earnestness of the disputants that the man 
employed in opening them, making a mistake, kept 
helping the red pepper advocate with black and the 
black pepper zealot with red ; and to the infinite 
amusement of the lookers on, neither found out the 
difference until they were told, when both instantly 
declared they thought the oysters had a very pecu- 
liar taste ! just as newspapers or politicians will 
now-a-days commence a fiery dispute concerning 
democratic and federal parties, or the powers of the 
general and state governments, until they uncon- 
sciously change sides in the course of the argument, 
without being anything the wiser ; and just so tri- 
vial and undistinguishable are half the disputes into 
which we poor brainless bipeds plunge with such 
uncontrollable fury, to the infinite amusement of 
all calm and dispassionate spectators. But it will 
not do to goon grounding general reflections on an 
oyster. It was made for better things than to be a 
theme from which to extract a questionable moral. 
I would if I could be eloquent in thy praise, thou best 
and gravest* of fish— thou most nutritious and di- 



* Wherein consists the superior gravity of an oyster is not very appa- 
rent ; yet it has long had that reputation as is evident from the ancient 
and well known couplet : 

" The gravest bea»t is an ass, the gravest bird an owl, 
The gravest fish an oyster, the gravest man a fool" 



OYSTERS. 167 

geslible of moluscous substances^— thou stanchest 
friend and steadiest supporter of Afric's trampled 
sons, for whom thou daily effectest more than Wil- 
berforce can ever hope to compass — much do I re- 
gret that the insatiable appetites of the citizens are 
robbing their bay of its greatest boast ; like the boy 
who killed the goose for the golden eggs, they are 
not content with the yearly produce of thy fruitful 
beds, but they leave them oysterless, seize on both 
interest and principal, and expect a miracle to pro- 
vide for the future. It is easy to foresee the ruin- 
ous consequences of such atrocious conduct — but it 
is not in common prose that thy merits and suffer- 
ings should be commemorated. I will take my liarp 
and sweep its softest strings. 

LINES ON A NEWLY-OPENED YORK-BANKEK. 

With feelings strange and undefined I gaze upon thy face, 
Thou choice and juicy specimen of an ill-fated race; 
How calnily, yea, how meekly thou reclinest in thy shell, 
Yet what thy woes and sufferings are man may conjecture well ! 

For thou hast life as well as he who recklessly seeks thine, 
And, couldst thou speak, might draw forth tears as briny as thy brine ; 
For thou was torn from friends and home and all thy heart could wish, 
Thou hapless, helpless, innocent, mute, persecuted fish. 

Perhaps thou w ast but newly joined to some soft plump young bride, 
Who op'd her mouth for food with thee when flowed the flowing tide ;* 



* Oysters taken from the river and kept in fresh water, open their 
mouths at the time of the flowing in of the tide, in expectation of 
their accustomed food.— Kitchiner. 



158 OYSTERS. 

Perhaps thou hast a family, from whom thou hast been torn, 
Who sadly wail for him, alas, who never will return ! 

Thou wast happy oii thy native bed, where blithesome billows play, 
Till the cruel fisher wrench'd thee from thy ' home, sweet home,'away ; 
He stow'd thee in his coble and he rovred thee to the strand— 
Thou wast bought and sold and opened, and placed in this right hand ! 

I know that while I mora|lize thy flavor fades away, 
I know thou shouldst be ate alive,* before thy sweets decay ! 
I know that it is foolishness, this weak delay of mine. 
And epicures may laugh at it as sentimental whine. 

Well, let them laugh,! still will drop a tear o'er thy sad fate. 
Thou wretched and ill-fated one ! thou sad and desolate ! 
O'er thee and o'er thy kindred hangs one all-consuming doom, 
To die a slow and lingering death, or, living, find a tomb ! 

Like the Indian from the forest — like the roebuck frbm the glen. 
Thy race is dwindling silently before the arts of men ; 
Ye are passing from the river, from the sea-bank, and the shore, 
And the haunts that long have known ye, shall know ye soon no more ! 

The Blue-point and the Shrewsbury f are vanishing away, 
And clamless soon will be our streams, and oysterless our bay ; 
Rapacious man, before your prime, ordains that ye shall die, 
And drags ye from your cool retreats to boil and stew and fry ! 

Why were ye made so racy, rich, and luscious to the taste ? 
'Tis that has stripped your thickest banks, and made your beds a waste ; 
" Your virtues have proved sanctified and holy traitors to ye," 
And that which was your proudest boast has served but to undo ye ! 

E'en I, the friend of all thy kind, when I think of what thou art, 
When I ponder o'er the melting joys thy swallowing will impart, 
Can delay thy fate no longer ; one look, it is my last ! 
A gulp^ — one more — a silent pause — a sigh — and all is past ! 



* Those who wish to enjoy this delicious restorative in the utmost 
perfection must eat it the moment it is opened, with its own gravy in 
the under shell ; if not eaten while absolutely alive, its flavor and spirit 
are lost. — Kitchiner. 

t Two famous species, found adjacent to New-York, now nearly 
extinct. 



:.^f' 



PASSAGES 
IN THE LIFE OF AN UNFORTUNATE. 

" Ah me ! for aught that ever I could read, 

Could ever hear by tale or history, 

The course of true love never did run smooth." 

Thomas Augustus Phelps was a junior clerk in 
a small retail store, in an unfrequented part of 
Maiden-lane. His salary was insignificant, and his 
expenses were considerable ; and, there being no vi- 
sible channel through which extraneous funds could 
come into his possession, how he contrived, as the 
saying is, " to make both ends meet,'' was a pro- 
blem which his most intimate friends were utterly 
unable to solve, and which was, moreover, a sub- 
ject upon which, for some reason or other, he al- 
ways declined to throw any light. He was gene- 
rally characterized as a genteel and rather well- 
informed young man — that is, his dress was unex- 
ceptionable; his address easy, forward, and flippant ; 
and he discoursed with uncommon fluency on a 
number of subjects which he knew nothing about. 
VOL. I. 15 



170 PASSAGES IN THE LIFE 

After he had gone through* the business of the day, 
he improved his mind, of an evening, by playing 
biUiards, and his morals by lounging about the sa- 
loons and lobbies of the theatre, from which places 
he criticized the performances in a very decided 
manner. This he was the better enabled to do^ 
from being hand and glove with many of the minor 
actorsj by whom he was let into the secret that the 
principal favorites of the town were persons desti- 
tute of ability, but that the capabilities of the 
minors were uncommon, though lost to the public 
by a monstrous system of managerial mismanage- 
ment, which bore heavily upon the whole massy 
and with intense severity upon the peculiar talents 
of the several informants. But his greatest qualifi- 
cation was his inexhaustible fund of what is termed 
" small talk !" This he poured forth on all occa- 
sions, in " one weak, washy, everlasting flood," in 
a way that gained him the ardent admiration of 
numerous young ladies, and at last made an inde^ 
lible impression upon the susceptible heart of Miss 
Julia Carmine, only surviving child of an artifi- 
cial-flower manufacturer in Division-street. Julia 
was a beauteous being, in the spring of life. Her 
features were strictly and chastely classical, except- 
ing her nose, mouth, chin, and forehead ; her eyes 
were exceedingly blue, her color rich and roseate. 



OF AN UNFORTUNATE. 171 

and her auburn tresses flowed in luxuriant ringletsj 
down her lovely neck, which was somewhat short. 
Nature had done every thing for her, setting aside 
that she wore artificial curls, and had purchased the 
majority of her teeth ; and though her complexion 
of a morning was rather sallow, yet when dressed 
out, and seen by candle or gas-hght. she was in 
reality a ^v'ery pretty looking young woman. She 
had faults, to be sure — who has not? But the 
greatest of them were, that she talked occasionally 
a sort of mongrel French, played on the guitar, and 
kept an album. 

What a sacred thing is first love ! and its accom- 
panying train of inexplicable and indescribable 
feelings ! and how hallowed in the imagination be- 
comes every spot connected with this purest of pas- 
sions ; particularly the spot where a mutual reci- 
procation of sentiment first took place ! It is that of 
whicli I am about to speak. Julia and Thomas 
Augustus sat alone one evening in a small arbor, 
or rather wooden box, in a retired corner of the 
^' Bowery tea-garden ;" 

" The moon hid her light 
From the heavens that night," 

and a variegated lamp, attached to the front of the 
box, was all that shed a melancholy radiance over 



172 PASSAGES IN THE LIFE 

the scene. Both experienced sensations unknown 
till then, and they had each a glass of ice-cream 
before them. 

" How beautiful is the firmament, with all its 
countless myriads of twinkhng stars," observed 
Thomas Augustus Phelps, looking upwards. 

" Beautiful indeed !" sighed Julia. 

" And this ice-cream aint so coarse neither," 
said he. 

" No — by no means,"' responded she. 

" Methinks," continued Thomas, " I could sit for 
ever thus, with thee by my side, gazing upon the 
blue vault of heaven, beloved Juha !" 

Julia did not answer, but her silence spoke more 
eloquently than words ; she bowed her head, and 
it is presumed blushed, but, as the lamp wanted 
trimming, there was not hght enough distinctly to 
ascertain that fact. Thomas Augustus gently 
drew the sweet girl towards him, and oh ! extre- 
mity of bliss! she did not resist. The, coldness 
of worldly restraint was broken down — they ex- 
changed vow^s of everlasting fidelity, and Thomas 
was about to seal the covenant on her lovely lips, 
when the man that goes about to gather up the 
empty glasses, unceremoniously popped his head 
into the box, and observed, " that he did not allow 
of them there sort of proceedings in his garden T' 



OF AN UNFORTUNATE. 173 

^rhomas Augustus would have resented this inju- 
rious insinuation on the instant, only he was by no 
means athletic, and did not possess a particle of cou- 
rage. He therefore contented himself with declaim- 
ing for some time in a style of lofty invective, and 
wound up by indignantly paying the man what he 
owed him, tucking Julia under his arm, and walk- 
ing out of the shrubbery. 

It is necessary, however, to premise that twelve 
months antecedent to the tender passages on which 
we have been dilating, Mr. Phelps commenced bu- 
siness on his own account in Canal-street. His 
debut was made during that auspicious period de- 
nominated the " Canal-street fever," when, in con- 
sequence of the lowness of the rents in that part of 
the city, every body flocked thither, which caused 
the landlords to quadruple their original demands, 
by which judicious proceeding they ruined their 
tenants and got no rent at all. He had invariably 
represented his affairs to Julia as being in a most 
prosperous state ; but unfortunately, though he was 
a young man possessed of many virtues, a love of 
truth was not one of them. Indeed, they who knew 
him best, affirmed that he was a notorious liar, and 
there is no reason to doubt their word. As he had 
started altogether on credit, and as he spent all the 
money that came in as the goods went out, when 

15* 



174 PASSAGES IN THE LIFE 

' his bills fell due, he told his creditors he was 
extremely sorry, but that he had no funds to meet 
their demands : they in return assured him that 
they were extremely sorry to hear it, seized upon 
the residue of his stock, and turned him out of 
doors. This was hard to bear, and he flew on the 
wings of love to find consolation in the society of 
his beloved Julia ; but she was not at home. The 
next day he called, and still the same answer. On 
the evening of the third day he was admitted to 
her presence, but " Oh frailty — thy name is wo- 
man !" she had heard of his misfortunes, and re- 
ceived him with chilling politeness. The lady was 
not at all mercenary ; but then she had found it 
convenient, as she informed him, to plight her vir- 
gin vows to Mr. Raphael Jackson, (familiarly 
termed Ralph Jackson) and they were to be mar- 
ried early in the ensuing week. Thomas stood 
mute and motionless, for, as the poet justly ob- 
serves, 

" Oh ! colder than the wind that freezes 
Founts, that but now in sunshine played, 

Is the congealing pang which seizes 
The trusting bosom when betrayed." 

What barbed the dart and made the matter worse, 
was that this Mr. Raphael Jackson — a young law- 
yer with a good deal of cunning, and more impu- 



OF AN UNFORTUNATE. 175 

deuce, consequently likely to do well in the world 
— was his most particular friend. Julia aroused 
him from his trance by asking him if he would 
not " stay to tea?" this offer he indignantly spurn- 
ed, and immediately quitted the premises. The 
next morning he found on his table an invitation 
to the wedding. It was, of course, never suspected 
that he would accept it, and was purely meant as 
a piece of gratuitous insolence on the part of the 
bride. Whoever calculated, liowever, on his not 
coming, reckoned without their host. " Yes !" ex- 
claimed he mentally, as he surveyed the perfumed 
rose-colored note : " yes ; I will see her once more 
— for the last— ay, for the last time !" 

About seven o'clock in the evening of the twenty- 
second of April, 1827, a jovial wedding party were 
assembled at the house of Mr. Carmine, in Division- 
street, to celebrate the nuptials of his accomplished 
daughter. All was prepared for the impressive ce- 
remony. The bride had got through shedding the 
preliminary tears usual on these occasions ; the 
bridegroom was doing his best, as in duty bound, 
to- look joyous and happy ; the bridesmaids were 
tittering and laughing for some reason or reasons 
best known to themselves ; the groomsmen were 
endeavoring to be uncommonly facetious, and the 
clergyman had put on a look meant to rebuke all 



1 76 PASSAGES IN THE LIFE 

tittering and facetiousness, when the door suddenly 
opened, and a figure stalked into the room. It was 
Mr. Thomas Augustus Phelps, but alas, how 
changed ! He looked not like one who had come 
to participate in a scene of happiness. His boots 
were dirty, his hat was slouched over his eyes, his 
coat was buttoned up to his chin, his cravat was 
far from clean, and his hands were stuck into his 
trowsers' pockets. The company recoiled, the bride 
uttered a faint exclamation, and the bridegroom 
stepped forward and demanded in a bullying tone 
of voice, " the meaning of this extraordinary intru- 
sion ?" Phelps spoke not a word, but drew from 
his right-hand coat pocket the perfumed rose-colored 
invitation note, and presented it to the bridegroom. 
He then drew from his left-hand coat pocket an 
uncommonly large horse-pistol, upon which Mr. 
Raphael Jackson retreated with great precipitation. 
Phelps deliberately cocked the pistol, and an un- 
common curiosity took possession of the guests to 
see which one of them he intended to sacrifice. 
This interesting suspense was soon ended ; for 
slowly bringing the fatal weapon in a line with his 
own forehead, he proceeded to pull the irrevoca- 
ble trigger. A struggle ensued, and dreadful to 
relate, in the scuffle the pistol went off full in the 
face of one of the fair young bridesmaids. Fortu- 



OF AN UNFORTUNATE. 177 

nately she sustained no injury, which led to a sus- 
picion that the instrument of death had been 
loaded with an eye to safety. Upon this the gal- 
lant bridegroom experienced a revivification of valor. 
He stepped forward, informed the unfortunate 
Phelps that he should hear from him in the morn- 
ing through the medium of Mr. Hays, and peremp- 
torily ordered liim to leave the room. The poor 
bride, who during this scene had been rather in the 
!mck ground, thought she now perceived a favora- 
ble opportunity for display, and accordingly, as the 
most natural expedient, commenced a fainting fit ; 
but there being no one sufficiently on the alert to 
catch her in his arms, and having, in the hurry 
of the moment, neglected the precaution of seeing 
that there was a chair in her immediate vicinity, 
she was obliged, when just upon the brink of insen- 
sibility, not only to recede considerably, but alt^o to 
look around her and diverge from a straight line in 
order to attain that necessary piece of furniture. 
This gave such an air of insincerity to the whole 
proceeding, that even her warmest admirers were 
compelled to admit that the attempt was a failure. 
Mr. Jackson once more asked Mr. Phelps whether 
he intended to quit the room, or whether he was 
waiting for him (Jackson) to put him out. Phelps 
scorned to reply ; a peculiar expression flitted over 



178 PASSAGES IN THE LIFE 

his pale features, he cast an indescribable look to- 
wards the bride, and then did as he was desired. 

On the following day, about noon, a gallant Li- 
verpool packet was passing Sandy Hook, outward 
bound. On her deck stood the principal actor in 
the intended tragedy of the preceding evening. 
His disappointment in love, and some fraudulent 
transactions connected with his late failure, had 
induced him to seek relief in change of scene. 
The breeze was fair, and the vessel was careering 
" o'er the glad waters of the dark blue sea" at the 
rate of about nine knots an hour. Phelps stood at 
the stern of the ship gazing intently on the land of 
his forefathers, which was fast fading in the dis- 
tance. A slight blue hne at the verge of the hori- 
zon was all that remained to him of the home of 
his childhood — the scene of so many balls, and 
publics, and parties — where he had danced, and 
sung, and played billiards, and eaten oysters when 
a mere boy ; the tears started to his eyes, he leaned 
his head over the ship's side, and in a voice choked 
with agony, exclaimed — 

" Oh, captain, I am very sick !" 

The captain, in that cheerful tone of voice with 
which a man who has nothing the matter with 
him consoles another who has, replied, " Never 
mind, sir — you'll be better in a day or two — haul 
taut the fore-top-sail halhards there ! belay !'' 



OF AN UNFORTUNATE. 179 

This to Phelps, whose face exhibited as many 
shades of blue, and black, and green, and yellow, 
as the back of a dying dolphin, was a great conso- 
lation. Indeed I have myself often had occasion to 
observe the happy effects of similar scraps of com- 
fort applied to sea-sick passengers. It is so plea- 
sant when you are suffering under this horrible 
affliction — when every minute seems an age, and 
every hour an eternity — to be told, " never mind, 
sir, you'll get over it in less than a week, maybe !" 
Time rolled on, and nothing reached the Ameri- 
can shores concerning the fate of Thomas Augus- 
tus Phelps, except a flying report that he had been 
undergoing a course of exercises in the Brixton 
tread-mill, when one Sunday morning, in the au- 
tumn of the year 1829, a shabby-genteel personage 
was seen strutting up Broadway. It was Phelps — 
yet why was he here ? His first love blessed ano- 
ther ; and the children that ought to have been 
called Phelps, were christened Jackson. The 
wooden paling of Trinity church-yard was at that 
period prostrate, and the cast-iron railing had not 
been erected, so that there was no obstacle to a free 
ingress to and egress from the burying-ground. 
Phelps wandered in among the tombs — a presenti- 
ment of some overhanging evil weighed heavily 
upon his breast, and before he had proc^ded far 



ISO PASSAGES IN THE LIFE 

he came to a plain marble slab almost overgrown 
with grass. A strange curiosity seized him ; he 
knelt down and parted the rank weeds which over- 
shadowed it ; a sunbeam at that moment darted 
precisely on the place, and he saw, carved in legi- 
ble German-text, the simple inscription ''Julia." 
He was indescribably affected ; and yet he felt a 
melancholy pleasure in thinking that she had too 
late become sensible of his merits, and pined into 
the grave in consequence of his absence. While 
indulging in this train of reflection, a troop of httle 
boys, attracted by the extraordinary spectacle of a 
man upon his kness in a church- yard, began to 
gather round, shouting and pelting him with earth 
and small pebbles. He arose to reprimand them ; 
but there having been a heavy showier of rain, 
and he having white duck trowsers on, the effect 
of his kneeling, upon his clothes, can, like a 
young heroine's feelings, be more easily imagined 
than described. He instantly, therefore, became 
an object of universal observation, and the little 
boys shouted and pelted more than ever. Phelps 
was exasperated beyond measure ; he seized one 
of the young miscreants, shook him well, and 
threatened the most dreadful corporeal chastisement 
if he did not desist. 



OF AN UNFORTUNATE. 181 

" Hurrah for Jackson !''* exclaimed the young 
rebel, nothing daunted. 

" Hurrah for Jackson !-' chimed in his compa- 
nions in evil-doing. This pointed, though unin- 
tentional allusion to his rival, at once unnerved 
Phelps — recollections of former insults and injuries 
came over him. and he strode from the burial- 
ground, the boys hurraing all the while at his coat_ 
tail ; when lo ! who should be seen issuing from 
the church porch but Mr. Raphael Jackson himself 
with his own Juha, now Mrs. Jackson, hanging on 
his arm ! This was too much — so then it appeared 
she had not pined away in his absence — she had 
not died — and he had been kneehng by the side 
of some one else's Juha ! They passed him with- 
out speaking, he muttered dreadful imprecations to 
himself, and bent his way down Wall-street. 

He is now only the wreck of his former self, 
though he is more corpulent than he was wont to 
be, yet it is not a healthy corpulency ; and his ap- 
parel is the extreme of what is generally denomi- 
nated " seedy." Yet amid this moral and physical 
desolation some traces of identity are yet preserved 
— some glimmerings of what once was Phelps ! 



* A common political cry about this time with young republi- 
cans. 

VOL. I. 16 



182 PASSAGES IN THE LIFE, ETC 

Therfe is still that peculiar strut in his walk, and 
he still wears his hat knowingly adjusted on one 
side of his head ; but he drinks like a fish, talks 
politics incessantly, and his shirt-frill is much be- 
daubed with snuff. What will be his final fate 
depends upon ulterior circumstances ; at present it 
is enveloped in the mists and darkness of futurity. 



SPRING. 

Lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone. The flowers appear 
on the earth ; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of 
the turtle is heard in our land. — Song of Solomon, chap. II. 

Every year, all the periodicals, in every city, in 
every country of the earth, have something to say 
upon the subject of spring, and have had something 
to say since time was, or at least, since periodicals 
were born, and will continue to have something to 
say until time shall cease to be. It is, in all res- 
pects, a most prolific theme, and there is no more 
chance of exhausting it, than of exhausting our 
kind mother ^ earth of grass, leaves, and flowers, 
and the never-dying vegetative principle. The 
reason is obvious enough : last year's grass, and 
leaves, and flowers are dead and past away — their 
freshness and fragrance are forgotten, and their 
beauty is remembered no more ; so it is with the 
essays, reflections, songs, and sonnets that sprang 
into life in the spring of eighteen hundred and 



184 SPRING. 

twenty-nine — they also have passed away, and 
their sweet thoughts and pretty sayings are like- 
wise remembered no more ; but as last years ve- 
getation fell to the earth and became incorporated 
with it only to be reproduced again in forms of 
fresh brilHancy and beauty, so do the thoughts and 
images of former wniters assume a new shape, and 
bear the impress of the present time by appearing 
in all magazines and newspapers, dail)^, weekly, 
and monthly, for the year eighteen hundred and 
thirty. And there is no plagiarism in all this ; it 
is merely, as Puff says, '• two people happening to 
tliink of the same idea, only one hit upon it before 
the other — that's all." Indeed, who would think 
of plagiarism on such an exhaustless subject as 
spring? Why a thousand thoughts and images 
that have lain dormant in the mind start into life 
at the mere mention of the word. As the fresh 
April breeze, laden with healthful fiagrance, blows 
upon you, it becomes a sort of natural impulse to 
vent your feelings either by pen or speecli. You 
look back upon the snow, and fog, and sharp un- 
feeling winds of winter as upon a desolate waste 
over which you have trodden, and fancy, as you 
see nature putting on her youthful gay attire, that 
you are entering into another and better state of 
existence ; forgetful that though her spring may be 



SPRING. 185 

eternal, your own is flitting fast away, never to be 
renewed. But no reflections ! let them come with 
winter, their fitting season. Spring was made for 
enjoyment, or rather, anticipation of enjoyment — 
promises of good — pleasant visions, and gorgeous 
castles in the air. Experience convinces not the 
young. They think not of their last year's visions 
that have faded away, nor the aerial castles that 
have tumbled about their ears ; or if they do, it is 
only to contrast their frailty with the firm texture 
and sure foundation of those in the perspective. But 
though spring be delightful to all classes, it is so to 
each in a different way, and for a different reason. 
In the country, your true agriculturist, though he 
wander amid a wilderness of sweets, marks not the 
tiny buds that are expanding and blooming into 
l)eauty all around — to be sure, he hopes that no 
killing frost will come and spoil his prospects of 
cider, but that is all. These are too small concerns 
for his capacious head. He ponders on acres of 
corn and fields of buck-wheat, and plans where 
barley should be sown and where oats. He looks 
into futurity and calculates how much the yet un- 
engendered grain will bring ; he schemes how his 
barren land may be artificially fertilized in the best 
and cheapest manner, and it is his business, not his 
pleasure, to take note of the wonderful operations 

16* 



186 SPRING. 

of nature. His wife considereth the dairy, and 
looketh out with motherly care that her sleek and 
velvet-coated cows be not turned from their winter 
quarters into damp and swampy meadows, lest 
they contract colds, coughs, catarrhs, and other dis- 
orders incident to cattle ; while the rosy-cheeked 
daughter attends to the poultry, (always the daugh- 
ter's perquisite) and literally " reckons her chickens 
before they are hatched." Anxiously does she 
watch that the young turkeys (the most tender of 
domestic fowls) do not get wet feet ; for on the pro- 
ceeds arising from their sale depend the splendor of 
the gown and the quantity and quality of the rib- 
bon that have in summer to adorn the village 
church, and excite the wonder and admiration of 
its simple congregation. So passes spring with 
them and others of their class. They talk and 
think less of its beauties than those who merely get 
glimpses of them in crowded cities, and have to 
draw upon their imagination for the rest. 

In the city spring brings with it a still more mul- 
tifarious collection of hopeful schemes and projects. 
Business that has been in a state of stagnation dur- 
ing the winter now flows briskly through a thou- 
sand different channels ; and the ladies, whose bu- 
siness is pleasure, are busier than any one else, for 
the spring fashions have come; milliners are now 



SPRING. 187 

the most obsequious of people ; tailors examine with 
a curious eye the coats of their customers as they 
meet them in the streets, and inquire most kindly 
and disinterestedly after their health and prospects ; 
merchants are scattering their ventures abroad, ships 
are fitting out, much beef is salted down, and many 
biscuits baked, but a number of hard things said 
about the tariff notwithstanding ; the North river 
is emancipated from ice, and owners of steamboats 
are preparing to oblige the public and ruin them- 
selves by vigorous competition ; the rustling of silks 
is heard in Broadway, criticisms upon hats, gowns, 
and trimmings are much in vogue amongst the 
fair creatures w^ho pace its fashionable side, and 
they look upon spring as the most chaiming sea- 
son of the year, " it is so delightful for morning 
calls." 

Spring is coming ! all good things are coming ! 
and some good things are going — oysters are going 
— there will soon be no r in the month, and then 
they are gone ; but shad are coming ; strawberries 
and pretty country girls are coming, so is fresh 
butter ; the men of Rochester and Buffalo, and 
other districts of the " far west" have come, and 
they wander up and down the streets in " wrapt 
amazement" at the never ceasing jingling of forte- 
pianos, and the twanging of guitars, harps, and 



188 SPRING. 

other stringed instruments ; the sons of the South 
have come, and Virginians, Carolinians, and Geor- 
gians are to be seen sauntering along, and gazing 
with horror at the shocking quantity of freedom 
enjoyed by the poor black wretches whom they 
chance to meet, and though they see it every sum- 
mer, they are never able to get over the astonish- 
ment created by beholding a dark dandy or an 
African coquette — as if white people possessed the 
exclusive right to make fools of themselves. "Ah !" 
think they, as a colored gentleman unceremoniously 
takes the wall of them — " Ah ! if I only had you 
in Savannah I" 

But spring has still its sad feehngs, and after le- 
vity comes heaviness of heart. It is a joyous sea- 
son to those who, like the year, are in their spring- 
time, just bursting into untried life ; but to such as 
have seen that time pass away for ever, whose spi- 
rits are depressed by difficulties, or broken by una- 
vailing struggles, it is a season rather of melancholy 
retrospection than present enjoyment. The aged 
or unfortunate are insensible to its influence ; they 
recall their spring, and mournfully contrast the 
happy past with the dreary present; truly is it 
said, 

" Joy's recollection is no longer joy- 
While sorrow's memory is sorrow still ;" 



SPRING. 189 

and deeply do they feel its truth. To those in their 
prime it is, at times, perhaps sadder still to look 
back upon the flowery fields of existence through 
which they have been rambling, and to contrast 
them with the beaten track they now tread, and 
the desolate prospect that lies before them. The 
friends of their youth have passed away, so have 
their brightest hopes ; they feel themselves changed, 
and their capacities for happiness diminished ; they 
see things full of joy and promise around, and are 
filled with a mixture of wordly scorn and unavail- 
ing regret for what can no more be theirs ; and 
sadly do they enter into the feelings of the poet — 

" The sky is blue, the sward is green, 
The leaf upon the bough is seen, 
The wind comes from the balmy west. 
The little songster builds its nest, 
The bee hums on from flower to flower, 
Till twilight's dim and pensive hour, 
The joyous year returns— but when 
Shall by -past times come back again ?" 



PHILADELPHIA— NEW-YORK— BOSTON, 

Satirists have said that all the concerns, great 
and small, of this bustling world, its love and war, 
laws, literature, and business, have self for their 
beginning and self for their end ; and that even 
charity to others is only a more refined species 
of self-love. Whether these suppositions be correct 
or not, will, like the destiny of the lost pleiad, and 
the powers of the general government, always re- 
main matters of opinion ; and far be it from me to 
attempt to settle, and thereby render of no effect, 
such interesting topics of conversation and specu- 
lation. 

In putting pen to paper, it is certainly best to 
avoid all new and hazardous assertions, and to 
content one's self with advancing, in a fearless 
manner, what no one can possibly doubt. I may, 
therefore, in the language of some writers, who dis- 
play a large quantity of superfluous valor and de- 
termination when there is no occasion for it, boldly 



PHILADELPHIA, ETC. 191 

agsertj without fear of contradiction, that self-love is 
no rarity in this world of ours. It manifests itself 
in a variety of ways, some of which are exceed- 
ingly curious and amusing, and as pleasant to 
laugh at as a friend's misfortunes. One of its most 
ludicrous forms is the way in which men interest 
themselves in little localities, the pride they feel in 
them, and the additional importance which they 
imagine attaches to themselves, in consequence of 
the celebrity of the city or district to which they 
belong, for some small matter or other. Thus, a 
Philadelphian identifies himself with the breed of 
homed cattle in the vicinity of that city — he consi- 
ders their fame and his own as inseparable, and 
looks dowri Upon a citizen of New- York because 
the cows of Pennsylvania give richer milk than 
those of Long Island ; a Bostonian thinks he ranks 
considerably higher in the scale of creation on ac- 
count of the occult mystery of making pumpkin 
pies having attained a state of perfection in Boston 
as yet unknown in the regions of the south, north, 
ani west ; while a New-Yorker is apt to be dogma- 
tical on all things connected with canals, though 
perhaps he never saw one in his life, merely be- 
cause the longest one in the world was accomplish- 
ed in his native state. 

They say " there is but one step from the sub- 



192 PHILADELPHIA, 

lime to the ridiculous." Now the feelings of pride 
and love with which a man looks upon his native 
country, are very proper and natural ; and though, 
in the eye of cold-blooded philosophy, a person is 
neither any thing the better nor the worse for the 
spot of earth which he may chance to have been 
born upon, yet men generally never have been, nor 
ever will be of that opinion. The laws and insti- 
tutions of a country, the fame of its literature and 
science, and the long train of glorious deeds that 
have been accumulating for ages, descend to a man 
as a species of national property, and there is no 
one but who values himself so much the more for 
his share in it, and looks upon himself as braver 
and wiser on account of the brave and wise men 
his native land has bred. There is something no- 
ble in this feeling in the aggregate ; but when it 
comes to be frittered away upon small matters — to 
be divided and subdivided into counties, towns, and 
villages, it is simply ridiculous. Some persons 
carry their local feelings to an extraordinary ex- 
tent : not only is their own country the greatest in 
the world, but their city, for some reason or other, 
is the best in the country ; the street in which they 
reside the best in the city, the house they occupy 
the best in the street, their room the best in the 
house, and themselves, by all odds, the best in the 



NEW-YORK, AND BOSTON. 193 

room. Nay, some do not even stop here. There 
are people who form httle local attachments about 
their own persons, and fall in love with an eye, a 
nose, a cheek, a chin, or a finger-nail. One of the first 
vocalists on the British stage, is known absolutely to 
doat on the construction of his leg ; he thinks, that 
since legs w^ere made, nature never constructed such 
a pair as he is the possessor of, and he accordingly 
takes every opportunity of obtruding them upon 
the observation of the audience. ' The earnestness 
with which he details their circumference, in various 
parts, to his friends and acquaintance, and the com- 
placency with which he regards them when only 
covered with thin black silk stockings, would be a 
fine subject for any clergyman who wished to 
preach a sermon on the vanities of this world. 
Unfortunately the costume of English opera but 
seldom affords an opportunity for the display of the 
pedestals on which the musical hero's body is erect- 
ed, and those of Mr. were too often doomed 

to be secluded in long wide trowsers, from the ad- 
miration of the public. But the fates were not 
always averse, and times would occur when thin 
black silk stockings were not at variance with the 
stage regulations. Alexander the Great was a 
proud and happy man when he crossed the Grani- 
Gus ; Henry the Fifth when the battle of Agincourt 

VOL. I. 17 



194 PHILADELPHIA, 

brought the French nobles), who had been playing 
at dice for him, captives at his feet ; Apelles when 
his rival mistook his curtain picture for reality, and 

Brigadier GeneraL the tailor, when surrounded 

by the best dressed staff in the militia, arrayed in 
coats of superfine cloth of his own making ; but 
none of them were so proud and happy as this vo- 
calist when he at last obtained an opportunity of 
submitting his unexceptionable pair of legs to the 
public view. He would rush upon the stage and 
pour forth his excited feelings in song, and there 
were few who could entrance an audience w^ith the 
melody of sound like him — they would hang with 
breathless attention upon every accent, and he ne- 
ver failed to make his exit amid the most deafening- 
applause. This he was far from attributing altoge- 
ther to his vocal powers. " Ah !" he would say, as 
he reached the side wing, at the same time slapping 
the objects of his admiration with affectionate fami- 
liarity — *' Ah ! it is some time since they have 
seen such a leg as that 1" 

This is a long episode, but as it is a fact, and at 
the same time shows the length to which men will 
carry their local partialities, it may perhaps be ex- 
cused. I was greatly amused last week on board a 
steam-boat, by listening attentively to a disputa- 
tious conversation between a Bostonian, a New- 



NEW-YORK* AND BOSTON. 195 

Yorker, and a Philadelphian, setting forth the se- 
veral excellencies of theiryseveral cities. The Bos- 
tonian was the most learned and pedantic, the New- 
York man the most loquacious and grandiloquent, 
and the Philadelphian the most sensitive and un- 
compromising. The first discoursed in a lofty strain 
of the classic charms of antiquity, and the advanced 
state of literature and the fine arts in the regions 
round about Cape Cod. " The unequalled state of 
our literary and scientific institutions," said he, " and 
the extreme beauty of maiiy of our public buildings 
must be admitted" — 

'' Public buildings," interrupted the Philadelphian, 
cutting short the thread of the man of Boston's dis- 
course, " if you want to see a public building, look 

at our market, look at our bank, look at our" 

*'. And if you talk of architectural beauty," said 
the New-Yorker, " look at our City-hall and St. 
Paul's church, and the Park theatre ; and as for 
the fine arts," continued he with solemnity, " I re- 
gard them as introducing luxury and corruption — 
as fitted only for the tainted atmosphere of Europe 
-^as inconsistent with the genius of our political 
institutions, and, I thank heaven, the charge of en- 
couraging them cannot be laid to New- York. No !" 
quoth he, gathering strength as he went along, like 
a stone rolling down a hill, — " give me the useful 



196 PHILADELPHIA, 

arts. When I contemplate the immense sums our 
custom-house yearly pay&into the national treasury 
— when I behold our docks crowded with shipping 
— when I survey our spacious bay, studded with 
islands, and our waters covered with" 

" Your waters !" interrupted the Philadelphian, 
unable any longer to withstand this torrent of eulo- 
gium, " your waters ! why there isn't a drop of 
water fit to drink in your whole town. If you 
want water, go to Philadelphia ; or if you want 
milk, or peaches, or shad, or straight streets, or fresh 
butter, or fresh air, or" — 

" Fresh air !" interrupted York, in a supercilious 
tone, and with an ironical though somewhat agi- 
tated expression of countenance, " why, you have 
no air worth speaking of in Philadelphia ; look at 
our fresh air — our fresh sea breezes daily wafted 
from the vast Atlantic through our streets." 

" Through your streets !" reiterated the descend- 
ant of William Penn in a fury ; " through your 
streets ! Let me tell you, sir, your sea-breezes may 
be good enough, but your streets are so cursedly 
crooked that the breezes cannot find their way 
through them— let me tell you that, sir." 

The blood of the man of York was up ; but he 
endeavored to keep down his rising wrath, and 
then in a voice of affected calmness, though trem- 



NEW-YORK, AND BOSTON. 197 

bling with rage, began to undervalue and sneer at 
straight streets, and boldly affirmed that crooked 
ones were infinitely better for a variety of reasons 
that he did not think proper to mention, and that 
any man of taste would decide that Pearl-street was 
a finer street than any in Philadelphia. 

This was perfectly unbearable, and the Philadel- 
phian, after swearing in a very wicked manner, 
went on to more than insinuate that his opponent 
was a fool, an ass, an idiot, and no gentleman ; and 
they might have proceeded to settle whether straight 
or crooked streets were best by knocking each other's 
brains out, if the company had not interfered. Hap- 
pily at this crisis the dinner-bell rang, and to those 
who have traveled much in steam-boats, I need say 
no more to account for the instant cessation of all 
symptoms of hostility. Never did the clock strik- 
ing twelve in a romantic melo-drama produce so 
dramatic an effect, as the ringing of the dinner-bell 
on board of a steam-boat. All previous topics of 
conversation, argumentation, or disputation, are 
instantly swept away, and a universal rush is made 
towards the savory cabin. You may know an old 
traveler by observing him take his station near the 
hatchway as the time approaches. As soon as the 
welcome sound strikes his ear, he gives a look of 
triumph round the deck for a single instant at the 

17* 



198 PHILADELPHIA, 

inconsiderate persons who, in remote [parts of ity 
have been gratifying their passion for the pictu- 
resque, and immediately dives below. Then may 
be seen the hurry and trepidation of the novice, the 
struggle on the part of the gentlemen between the 
attention and politeness due to the ladies, and their 
own love of victuals — the painful efforts of the la- 
dies to preserve an air of unconcern and composure, 
and their anxiety touching the delicate first-cuts 
from the bosoms of capons and turkeys — then may 
be seen the utter looks of consternation of those un- 
fortunate people who happen to be at the bows of 
the boat, and the glare of horrid malignity with 
which all the company above regard any corpulent 
old gentleman who takes his time in descending 
the ladder. The most impudent thing I ever wit- 
nessed in the whole course of my existence, was 
during a scene of this kind, on board a steam-boat 
last summer. An astonishingly fat old man was, by 
reason of his previous advantageous locality, almost 
the first who reached the entrance to the cabin when 
the dinner-bell rang. He swung his unwieldly 
mass of brawn slowly and hsavily into the door- 
way, completely obstructing the passage, and pro- 
ceeded to descend at a snail's pace, amid the smo- 
thered execrations of the company. After a consi- 
derable interval of time, he succeeded in reaching 



NEW-YORK, AND BOSTON. 199 

the middle of the ladder, when, what will it be sup- 
posed the fat old man did? He actually came to 
a full stop, took his hat from his head, drew from 
thence a pocket-handkerchief, proceeded deliberate- 
ly to wipe his forehead, then one cheek, then the 
other, and concluded by drawing it leisurely across 
his chin, after which he deposited it in his hat 
again, placed his hat on his head, and continued on 
his way as if he had done nothing amiss. It speaks 
volumes for the morals of the people and the state 
of society, when I affirm, though it may seem in- 
credible, that he escaped without the slightest vio- 
lence ! As the lady says in the tragedy, " curses 
kill not ;*' and it was lucky for the fat old gentleman 
that this was the case, otherwise he would have 
been a lifeless corpse before dinner that day. 

I have rather wandered from the subject of local- 
ities, and it is now too late to recur to it again. I 
may, however, state, that the Bostonian, Philadel- 
phian, and New-Yorker spoke no more during the 
passage, and doubtless parted with a hearty con- 
tempt for each other ; thus adding one more to the 
many instances of the utility of warm disputes 
about nothing at all. 



OLD SONGS. 



Mark it, Cesario, it is old and plain ; 

The spinsters and the knitters in the sun, 

And the free maids that weave their thread with bones 

Do use to chaunt it. — Shaks. 



I LIKE an old song. It is the freshest piece of an- 
tiquity in existence ; and is, moreover, hable to no 
selfish individual appropriation. It was born far 
back in the traditionary times, so that its parentage 
is somewhat equivocal; yet its reputation suffers 
not on that account, and it comes down to us asso- 
ciated with all kinds of fond and endearing remi- 
niscences. It melted or gladdened the hearts of our 
forefathers, and has since floated around the green 
earth, finding a welcome in every place humanized 
by a ray of fancy or feeling, from " throne to cot- 
tage hearth." It has trembled on the hps of past 
and forgotten beauty ; and has served, in countless 
wooings, as the appropriate medium for the first 



OLD SONGS. 201 

fearful breathings of affection. The youthful mai- 
den has broken the silence with it in many a lovely, 
lonely dell ; and the shepherd has chaunted it on 
the still hill side. The rude sailor has filled up the 
pauses of his watch by whisthng it to the shrill 
winds and sullen waters ; and it has bowed the 
head, brought the tear to the eye, and recalled 
home, and home thoughts to the mind of many a 
wanderer on a distant shore. It has been heard in 
the solitudes of nature^ and at the crowded, festive 
board. It has refreshed the worn-out heart of the 
worldling, and awakened " thoughts that do often 
lie too deep for tears," in the minds of the moody 
and contemplative. It has been a source of conso- 
lation and joy to those who have passed away ; it 
comes unexhausted to us ; and it will glide gently 
down the stream of time, cheering and soothing as 
it goes, from generation unto generation, till utihta- 
rianism becomes universal, and music and poetry 
fade into a dimly remembered dream. Yet a true- 
bred, moth-eaten antiquary would sacrifice it, if he 
could, for a copper coin fifty years its senior ! 

If any musical man expect, from the title to 
this, a learned article, he will be egregiously disap- 
pointed. I have no pretensions to treat this subject 
scientifically, being, indeed, admirably qualified, in 
this age of confessions, as far as want of knowledge 



202 OLD SONGS. 

goes, to write the " confessions of an unmusical 
man.'* As regards flats and sharps, I am truly lit- 
tle better than a natural ; and as for quavers, semi- 
quavers, demi-semi-quavers, and other subtler divi- 
sions, if there be any, I am as ignorant of thera as 
the ass that crops his thistle off the common, and 
brays in whatsoever note nature prompts him. 
But what of that 1 Music is not altogether a me- 
chanical science ; and there are profou rider sym- 
pathies in the heart of man than the orchestra think 
of. There is no more nauseous animal in exist- 
ence than your musical coxcomb, who has all the 
terms and technicahties of the art at his tongue's 
end, without the glimmering of an idea concerning 
the human passions, the deep feelings, and the keen 
and delicate perception of the beautiful, on which 
that art is founded. Proportionably to b^ admired 
is the man who, after spending years in study and 
research, and successfuly fathoming and mastering 
all difficulties, never dreams of considering his labo- 
riously-acquired knowledge as more than merely an 
accessory, not a principal, in the delightful science 
he has made his study. The former are, as a na- 
turalist would express it, " in theatres and at con- 
certs—common ;" the latter is of a species scarce 
all over the world. 

There may be loftier flights^ — a higher species of 



•OLD SONGS. 203 

fame, than that attained or aimed at by the song- 
writer ; but there is no one to whom honor is more 
gladly rendered by the mass of mortals. His claims 
come into notice, for the most part, in a genial sea- 
son — when friends are met, and the glass and sen- 
timent and song go round ; when gladness swells 
the heart, fancy tickles the brain, and mirth and 
good-humor sparkle from the eye ; — when Bacchus 
has almost closed up criticism's venomous optics, 
and laid hyper-criticism quietly under the table ; — 
when the fine-strung nerves are exquisitely alive to 
all pleasurable sensations ; — then it is that divine 
music, wedded to still diviner poesy, can, in an in- 
stant, 

" bid the warm tear start. 

Or the smile light the cheek ;" 

and then it is that the memories of the masters of 
song are pledged with a fervor that the ethical or 
epic poet may despise, but can never either expect 
or hope for from the partiality of his cooler admi- 
rers»^ Next to Shakspeare there is no one whose 
memory is more fondly treasured than that of 
Burns. Independently of being intensely loved and 
revered wherever a Scottish accent is heard, social 
societies are formed in every country in which his 
language is known, to keep that memory fresh 



204 OLD SONGSr 

and green. And he well deserves it. Perhaps 
his songs are the best ever written. He has not 
the polish, the refinement, the exuberance of ima- 
gery, or the sparkling fancy of Moore, but he ex- 
cels him in humor and pathos. They are, how- 
ever, both glorious fellows ; and it must be a narrow 
heart that cannot find room for admiration of more 
than one. If the lyrics of Burns do not, as yet. 
strictly come under the designation of " old songs," 
they at least will do so, for they have the germ of 
immortality within them. It is almost impossible 
to dream of the time when " Auld Lang Syne" 
will not be sung. He had his faults (I am no 
Scotchman), and in turning over his pages, be- 
sides occasional coarseness and bad taste, you 
sometimes meet with a verse, that, " not to speak it 
profanely,'^ bears a striking resemblance to utter 
nonsense ; for instance, (though what could be ex- 
pected from words to such a tune — " Robin Adair !'*) 



•' Down in a shady walk, 
Doves cooing were, 

I mark'd the cruel Kawk 
Caught in a snare : 

So kind may fortune be. 

Such make his destiny ! 

He who would injure thee, 
Phillis the fair !" 



But if your admiration of the poet begin to falter 



OLD SONGS. 205 

for a niomentj perhaps the very next page brings 
you to " Highland Mary/' " Ae fond kiss and then we 
sever," " A man's a man for a' that," " Mary Morri- 
son," or, that song without a name commencing — 

" Here's a health to ane I lo'e dear, 

Here's a health to ane I lo'e dear ; 

Thou art sweet as the smile when fond lovers meet, 

And soft as their parting tear — Jessy !'' 

Burns has done for Scottish song what Scott has 
done for Scottish history — made it known and're- 
nowned in every portion of the globe ; and had 
'' auld Scotland" never produced any other names 
of note, these two are amply sufficient to honor and 
glorify her through all time. 

What are generally known by the name of 
" Irish songs," — the " Paddy Whackmeracks," and 
*' Barny Brallagans" of the pot-house and the play- 
house, bear ten times less resemblance to the ge- 
nuine melojdies of the " green isle," than even the 
majority of regular stage Irishmen do to the exist- 
ing natives. Both are merely broad English ca- 
ricatures. The soul of Irish music, beyond that 
of all other national music, is melancholy. It is, 
perhaps, too fine a distinction to draw, but of the 
serious melodies of the three nations, perhaps the 
English airs are most characterized by mournful 
sadness — those of Scotland by pathos and tender- 

VOL. I. 18 



206 OLD SONGS. 

ness— and those of Ireland by a wild, wailing me- 
lancholy, of an almost indescribable character. But 
words are poor expositors in such cases. Let any 
one play a few airs from each, and they will proba- 
bly furnish him at once with the distinction here 
attempted to be drawn. I would humbly suggest 
" Coolin," or " Silent, oh Moyle," as the strongest 
instances I can think of on the part of Ireland. 
The English, it is said, have no national melody ; 
an'd perhaps this is true -of that portion of the coun- 
try from Dover to the borders ; but long prior to the 
presence of the Normans, who changed the man- 
ners and injured the pithiness of the language of the 
natives, the British had melodies marked by great 
simplicity and sweetness. Who does not remem- 
ber the beautiful song, " Ayr hyd y nos," familiarly 
known as " Poor Mary Ann ?" — then there is that 
fine air, " Of a noble race was Shenkin," and many 
others, which may be found in Parry*s AVelsh Me- 
lodies. These are still to be met with in many a 
quiet and sequestered glen amid the fastnesses of 
Wales, where the harp of the Druids took sanc- 
tuary, and where the poetry and melody of that 
mysterious sect are still preserved. It is no wonder 
that at the inpouring of the heterogeneous and 
mercenary Norman flood, the pure native melodies 
became corrupted, and were nearly swept away ; 



OLD SONGS. 207 

yet, notwithstanding, the splendid church music of 
the Enghsh excites the deep admiration of Europe ; 
and their glees and madriga4s have never been ex- 
celled. Purcell, Locke, Jackson, and Arne, have 

I 
written many charming melodies : but to come 

nearer to the present day, if I may venture an opi- 
nion, I would say that justice has scarcely been 
done to Shield, a sound, manly composer, who has 
left a number of things behind him which really" 
and truly deserve to live and flourish amid the 
mass of musical compositions that, fungus-like, 
hourly spring into existence, and as rapidly decay. 
" The Thorn," " Let Fame sound the Trumpet," 
" Old Towler," " Heaving the Lead," " Ere round 
the huge Oak," and a number of others, if they 
cannot justly lay claim to any great degree of ima- 
ginative beauty, have at least an infusion of genuine 
melody — a body, ay, and a soul, that will long 
preserve them from oblivion. 

Shakspeare's songs, for the most part, have been 
fortunate in being married to good music ; some of 
them almost better than they deserve. Whether 
in ridicule or not of the song-writers of his time, he 
certainly made too Uberal a use of the " heigh hos" 
and " ninny nonnys." Next to Ariel's pretty fancy, 
" Where the bee sucks, there lurk I," the one with 
the most freedom and lyrical beauty is, to my taste, 



208 OLD SONGS. 

" Under the Greenwood Tree." But it loses half 
its effect when transplanted from the forest of Ar- 
den, and sung in a modern room, amid long coats, 
cravats, decanters, and> etiquette. Neither does it 
assimilate better with boisterous mirth and whis- 
key punch. Yet it is an ill-used song, even on the 
stage. It is too operatically given. Your Amiens 
is generally (hke the majority of male music-mon- 
gers) a stiff-hmbed piece of humanity, who under- 
stands singing, and little else ; he generally takes 
his station about four feet from the foot-lamps, and 
there, with elongated physiognomy, and one arm 
protruded towards the pit, goes through his work 
with most clock-Uke precision. To parody a beau- 
tiful simile, it is " music breathing from a wooden 
block ;" all which is very unlike the free-hearted 
lord whom we imagine, throwing himself at the root 
of some antique oak, and, in a fine, mellow voice, 
trolling forth, until the old forest rang again, his 
most joyous invitation. But this may be amended 
when, amid the other astonishing improvements of 
the times, leading vocahsts shall be endowed with 
joints and ideas. Next to this, I like the one now 
invariably put into the mouth of Rosalind, and chris- 
tened the " Cuckoo Song" 

" When daisies pied, and violets, blue." 



OLD SONGS. 209 

But your stage Rosalind is generally the reverse of 
Amiens — an arch, vivacious lass, who imparts due 
effect to the mixture of natural images and do- 
mestic ideas suggested by the saucy words of the 
song. 

The sea, " the battle and the breeze," and the 
rapid and manifold vicissitudes incident to the life 
of a sailor, furnish a bold and beautiful variety of 
subjects capable of being turned to good account in 
a song or ballad. Yet, somehow or other, Apollo 
does not much atTect the quarter-deck. The ocean 
brine is too powerful for the waters of Castaly. 
Poesy in some sort suffers by a " sea-change ;" and 
the quantity to be extracted from a volume of ge- 
nuine naval ditties is wofully disproportionate to 
the bulk of rhyme. Some of the best sea songs 
have been written by landsmen, and one great 
cause of their being so, is their comparative freedom 
from perplexing technicalities ; for though a cha- 
racteristic phrase may occasionally impart life and 
spirit to a production, yet a technicality, whether in 
marine or agricultural poetry, is a sore stumbling- 
block to the uninitiated. Now every line (or plank) 
of three- fourths of your nautical melodies is calked 
with them, independently of containing a much 
larger infusion of tar than tenderness — of pitch 

18* 



210 OLD SONGS. 

than pathos. They abound, likewise, in an inor- 
dinate degree, in descriptions of tornadoes, and dis- 
charges of artillery— in slaughter and sudden death; 
and the sentiments correspond thereunto, being as 
rough as a hawser, and as boisterous as a north- 
wester. Though admirably adapted to be growled 
out by the boatswain wheyi the vessel is scudding 
under double-reefed topsails, they would on land, 
and in a room, go off like a discharge of musketry. 
But, worse than all, is the minuteness of detail — 
the distressing particularity which ever pervades 
them. They are mere paraphrases of the log-book ; 
and the due course and reckoning of the ship is 
most especially insisted on — ■- 

" That time bound straight for Portugal, 

Right fore and aft we bore ; 
But when we made Cape Ortugal, 

A gale blew off the shore," &g. 

Yet, after all, there are some noble things in this 
branch of the *' service," amply sufficient to redeem 
it from dishke. Who is there that has not held his 
breath when he has heard a rich, deep-toned voiee^ 
commence Gay's glorious ballad 

" All in the Downs the fleet lay moor'd ; 
The streamers waving in the wind !" 

and listened throughout, with a quickened pulse, to 



OLD SONGS. 21i 

that " plaia unvarnished tale" of humble love and 
tenderness. There is much, too, to please any man, 
who is not over and above fastidious, in dozens of 
Dibdin's vigorous and hearty sketches of a sailor's 
hardships and enjoyments, to say nothing of Pearce 
and others of inferior note ; but from your regular 
forecastle narratives, Apollo deliver us ! 

Things called " comic songs," to wit, " Four and 
twenty tailors all in a row," ifec, are, in my mind, 
striking exemplifications of the depth of debase- 
ment of which the human intellect is susceptible. 

In whatever way America is, or may become re 
nowned, she will probably never be a land of song ; 
and for two or three reasons. There are already a 
sufficiency of standard songs in the world to answer 
all purposes ; and she has impoited an ample suffi- 
ciency to supply the varied tastes and caprices of 
her musical population. Moore's Melodies are as 
common in the cities of the west as in their native 
land ; and those of Burns are no rarity. The geo- 
graphy of the country, too, is strikingly unfavora- 
ble for indigenous song. Nature has created the 
land in one of her most liberal and magnificent 
moods, and formed its features on a scale of gran- 
deur that is impossible to grasp in this kind of 
writing. The ocean-lakes — the mighty rivers — the 
interminable forests-- the boundless prairies, are all 



2i2 * ^LD SONGI^/ 

epic rather than lyrical. How would it sound, 
either for rhyme or reason, 

" On the shores of Mississippi, 
When the sweet spring-time did fall !" 

The idea suggested is too vast. There is no snug 
endearing locality about such scenes ; and as for 
" the sweet spring time," it never " falls" on a great 
proportion of the shores of rivers whose waters rise 
far towards the regions of eternal winter, and roil 
through every variety of cUmate, to those of ever- 
lasting summer ; while the smaller streams, which 
correspond in size to the " Nith,*' the " Dee" or 
" Bonnie Doon," are ruined by the general appella- 
tion of " crik" (creek), which is bestowed upon 
them ; and to which some such euphonious title as 
Big Elk, Buffalo, or Otter, is usually prefixed. 
Besides, America is not rich in recollections of the 
past. No castles, grim, hoary and dilapidated, 
frown upon her heights : no gorgeous abbeys moul- 
der in her verdant vales. The joys, and sorrows, 
and sufferings of humanity are, as yet, scarcely 
impressed upon her soil. She has no records of 
feudal strife, of faded greatness, and fond affection 
— of all tradition loves, and song delights in. Hope 
must, in some degree, be to her poets what me- 
mory is to those of older lands. But the mind of 



OLD SONGS. 213 

the song-writer is reminiscent — not anticipative ; 
and therefore it is, that with whatever species of 
fame and greatness America may enrich her brows, 
it is probable she will never, in one sense, be 
" worth an old sonff." 



MORALITY— HORSE RACING. 

There is a kind of people who, instead of finding 

•Sermons in stones, and good in every thing," 

are gifted by nature with a pecuHar quickness in 
perceiving and detecting vice and wickedness in 
every variety of form and complexion. They have 
an aptitude in raking and scraping together all the 
bad which is generally mixed up with worldly pur- 
suits and amusements, and of overlooking what- 
ever of good may be mingled therewith. Whether 
this intimate acquaintance with evil habits and 
feelings — this familiarity with the obliquities of 
human nature, is to be accounted for upon the prin- 
ciple embodied in the shrewd proverb of " set a 
thief to catch a thief," ought to be left to people 
more charitable in their constructions than them- 
selves, or the verdict would not be at all flattering. 
The worst of the matter is, they claim this sharp 



MORALITY—HORSE RACING. 215 

perception of the vile and vicious as a sort of merit, 
and account it pure stern morality harshly to cen- 
sure what they dislike in the conduct of others. 
They take a one-sided view of all things, try them 
according to their own standard of propriety, and so 
decide tiiat they are altogether right or altogether 
wrong : they cannot bring themselves to see that 
*^ the web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and 
ill together," that " our virtues would be proud if 
our faults whipped them not ; and our crimes would 
despair if they were not cherished by our virtues/ 
This is rather too reasonable and philosophical a 
view of the question for them, and in reason and 
philosophy they profess to place but little faith. 
These infallible personages have seen or heard 
that there are such things as foolishness and 
frivolity in ball rooms, and therefore, without taking 
into account the innocent mirth and harmless gaiety 
which there predominate, they set down balls as 
very foolish and frivolous affairs ; they have seen or 
heard that there are specks of immorality and dis- 
soluteness to be met with in a theatre, and there- 
fore set down a theatre as a concentration of all 
that is dissolute and immoral; they have seen or 
heard that blacklegs, vagabonds, sharpers, <fcc. at- 
tend race courses, and therefore set down all that 
go as blacklegs, vagabonds, or sharpers. They are 



216 MORALITY— HORSE RACING. 

great generalizersj and account a man who stands 
and looks at one full-blooded horse running against 
another as a species of monster, incapable of dis- 
charging the moral and social duties of society. 

There has always been a particularly large quan- 
tity of cant abroad on the subject of moraUty ; and 
th« foundation of it appears to be laid in an erro- 
neous beUef of the extreme susceptibility of human 
nature to impressions of either good or evil. Men's 
morals, like their constitutions, are more permanent 
and durable than is frequently imagined, and nei- 
ther so easily destroyed or mended as mental or 
medical hypochondriacs would have us believe. A 
man beholds a discreditable action or hears a ques- 
tionable speech, and is no worse for it ; or he sees a 
virtuous action and listens to a lecture containing 
the most excellent advice, and is no better for it. 
This is the case ninety-nine times out of a hun- 
dred ; and it takes a long familiarity with either 
good or evil to make a permanent impression on 
one with any pretensions to stability of character. 
Nothing can be more childish than to hear the ad- 
vocates or opponents of the stage, for instance, en- 
deavor to settle its general tendency by picking out 
little speeches and sentences either for or against 
morality ; and the mistakes to which this habit of 
looking at details and neglecting the sum total have 



MORALITY— HORSE RACING. 217 

given rise, are very curious. Many a play, like a 
man, has acquired a good character by sounding 
words and hp-professions only. An author will 
make a well-meaning peer or potentate declaim 
upon vice or virtue in the abstract, or in cases far 
removed from common hfe and every-day occur- 
rences, and gain much credit for the excellent ten- 
dency of his drama ; while Gay's " Beggar's Opera," 
which exposes in plain language the disgusting 
selfishness and utter want of feeling and principle 
in characters and amid scenes which take place 
under our very noses, has been more than once 
hissed off the stage for its immorality ! So much 
for consistency. 

For my own pari I always loved horse-racing, 
and even when a child, and the qualities of horses 
were totally unknown to me, exhibited an incipient 
propensity for betting by making^ tiny wagers on 
the colors of the riders. Since that I have seen 
many a race, and never found my health, morals, 
or temper any the worse for so doing. It is a 
fine sight at all times to look upon a good horse ; 
but to see one of the noblest of a noble species led 
on to the race-course previous to starting, his po- 
lished skin glancing and glistening in the sun as 
he moves gracefully along, is as glorious a picture 
of animated nature as a poet or painter would wish 

VOL. I. 19 



218 MORALITY— HORSE RACING. 

to behold. What fire and expression in his 
eye ! what a union of strength and beauty in his 
finely moulded limbs ! How light and elastic his 
step — it seems as if it would scarcely crush the 
young grass on which he treads. And then to see 
him matched with another, or others, like himself 
The^nxiety you feel about the fairness of the start 
— the quickened pulse and rapid circulation of the 
blood during the race, and the all-absorbing interest 
of the final struggle, are indescribable, and I am 
sorry for those who have never experienced them. 
But then, cry your morahsts, this occasions betting, 
and betting is gambling. Such a consequence by 
no means follows ; but admit it for the sake of ar- 
gument. What is this to the gambling that is car- 
ried on on 'change, or other high places of Mam- 
mon? Is not the cotton trade gambling? Are 
not manufacturij;ig speculations gambling ? And 
is not the banking system gambling, or something 
v/orse ? Yet who ever hears of the immorality of 
those grave concerns? And as for betting, men 
will bet on some subject or other, and a horse-race 
is perhaps the very best thing they can exercise 
their talents upon. 



"Most people, till by losing rendered sager, 
Will back their own opinions by a wager," 



MORALITY— HORSE RACING. 219 

is true eaough, and accordingly men bet on all 
things — on the death or marriage of their friends — 
on the election of their magistrates — on their own 
weight, height, or circumference, or the weight, 
Jieight. or circumference of their neighbors. Then 
again the consistency of some very good people 
who look with horror on the betting of a dollar 
whether one horse runs faster than another, yet 
who I know invest large sums in lottery experi- 
ments — the worst, because the most foolish species 
of gambhng. But the truth is, the w^orld is made 
up of people who, as Butler says, 

" Compound for sins they feel inclined to, 
By damning those they have no mind to." 

A volume- composed of the lives or anecdotes of 
celebrated race horses would be an interesting study 
to the naturalist, the physiognomist, the craniolo- 
gist, and the philosopher. A race-horse is an intel- 
ligent being, and not a mere machine urged for- 
ward by a man upon its back. Some of them are 
as capricious and fanciful as a fine lady, and some 
as obstinate and self-willed as a doctor of laws ; 
while others again are equally as sensible and 
knowing as those who bestride them ; and from 
natural good sense, and long and extensive expe- 



220 MORALITY— HORSE RACING. 

rience, acquire a fund of practical information and 
intelligence on racing subjects. In numerous qua- 
lities, not only physical but mental, they are infi- 
nitely superior to many a biped, whose memoirs 
are frequently obtruded upon the public in two 
volumes octavo ; and I have somewhere read an 
epitaph on one, which shows that I am not alone 
in my friendly feelings towards these high-spirited 
animals. 

*' Here lies entombed beneath this heap of earth, 
A gallant horse — whose ancestry or birth, 
Though proud, swells not his eulogy : he shone 
With genuine worth and virtues all his own. 
His generous spirit, that with high disdain 
Brook'd not the chiding spur, obey'd the rein : 
Meek in his might, though wrong'd, he scorned to deal 
Vindictive death-blows from his noble heel ; 
Sometimes with tame and drooping neck conveyed 
The tottering infant or the trembling maid ; 
With dumb regard his bounteous master viewed, 
And told in looks his honest gratitude. 
But when the horn's shrill challenge waked the wood. 
With ears erect and quivering limbs he stood ; 
Forward he flew, the vulgar steeds aloof, 
The champaign rung beneath his bounding hoof ! 
Nor cliffs nor chasms his daring course restrain, 
And mountains rise and torrents roar in vain. 
Sunk is the arch of that aspiring crest, 
The mane's proud streamers and the panting breast ; 
Mangled and mould'ring in one shapeless heap. 
Those flashing eyes and thundering nostrils sleep. 
Reader, whoe'er thou art, whose manly mind 
Bleeds o'er the ashes of thy mortal kind, 
Spare but one drop from pity's generous source. 
Nor blush to shed it for my gallant horse." 



EATING. 



-He had not dined ; 



The veins unfilled, our blood is cold, and tlirn 
We pout upon the morning, are unapt 
To give or to forgive ; but, when we have stuffed 
These pipes and these conveyances of our blood 
With wine and feeding, we have suppler souls 
Than in our priest-like fasts. — Shaks. 

Very true : and if old Menenius did not succeed 
in his application to the inflexible Roman to spare 
his country, it was not for want of a correct know^- 
ledge of the acerbity produced by an empty sto- 
mach, and the mollifying effects of good victuals 
upon the temper : at the same time it presents 
strange and mortifying images to the mind of the 
littleness of human nature, and the insignificant 
causes which are not unfrequently the mainspring 
of mighty events. " He had not dined," reasons the 
old man ; and to the degree of flatulency and aci- 
dity produced in Coriofanus's stomach by his not 
having done so, Menenius ascribes his rejection of 

19* 



222 EATING. 

the prayers of the grave senators and virgins to 
save immortal Rome. It may be that he was right ; 
and perhaps the fate of the eternal city depended 
materially upon as mean a thing as Tullus Aufi- 
dius's cook ! " So runs the world away." But the 
truth is, since the days of Adam, eating has never 
been, for any length of time, out of fashion ; and 
though abstemiousness is allowed by many to be a 
virtue, it is one that has been always more praised 
than practised. For my own part, I think it is ra- 
ther an unamiable weakness — a phantom which 
haunts the imagination of nervous people, valetu- 
dinarians, and such as are continually scheming 
how to spin out the thread of a miserable existence 
after all their capabilities for pleasure and enjoy- 
ment have passed away. Besides, it is strenuously 
recommended by physicians, and is therefore to be 
distrusted, for no man perseveringly labors against 
his own interest. Moreover, if the looks and ta- 
bles of our worthy New- York M. D.'s are to be 
taken as a criterion, it is quite evident that, how- 
ever they may enforce abstemiousness upon others, 
" they never set it up to fright themselves." This 
is, to say the least, suspicious ; and I for one consci- 
entiously believe, that if ever water-gruels, weak 
broths, or vegetable diet comes into fashion, the 
human species will soon fade away from the face 



EATING. 223 

of the earth — that hving skeletons will be no rarity, 
and a man of one hundred pounds a monster of 
corpulency — that the poor old world will fall into 
an atrophy, and that some future Calvin Edson, 
divested of his superfluous flesh, will personify 
Campbell's " last man !" 

In literature, eating has always cut a conspicu- 
ous figure. The old dramatists are filled with soul, 
or rather, stomach-felt descriptions of rich luscious 
feasts ; and though in those days a Ude or a 
Kitchiner had not enlightened the world by his 
wonderful discoveries, our ancestors were luxurious 
rogues notwithstanding. Only see with what unc- 
tion Ben Jonson makes one of his characters sum 
up now unheard-of dishes : 



" I'll have 
The tongues of carps, dormice, and camel's heels 
Boiled in the spirits of Sol, and dissolved pearl, 
Apicius' diet, 'gainst the epilepsy ; 
My footboys shall eat pheasants, calver'd salmons. 
Knots, godwits, lampreys ; I myself will have 
The beards of barbels served instead of salads ; 
Oiled mushrooms," &c. 



and Fielding and Smollett's heroes are good for 
nothing without their dinner; they must have 
solid meat and strong drink to invigorate and sti- 
mulate them for either war or courtship. Feed 
them well, or they disgrace themselves — make love 



224 EATING. 

in a very awkward and insipid manner, and are 
apt to have their courage called in question. 

After this, came the terrific style of writing, of 
which Mrs. Radcliffe was the head, and indeed, 
almost the only one worth reading. Novels at this 
time were so filled with trap-doors, dungeons, se- 
cret stair -cases, winding galleries, subterraneous 
passages, shrieks, and midnight assassinations, 
that it is presumed these horrors entirely took 
away the appetites of the persons concerned, for 
no mention is made of eating, though from the fre 
quent allusions to " measures of wine" and " reviv- 
ing cordials," there is every reason to believe that 
the heroes and heroines were addicted to hard- 
drinking, which habit is bad enough at any time, 
but particularly hurtful when indulged without a 
reasonable portion of food, as it speedily destroys 
the coats of the stomach, and induces a long train 
of dreadful disorders. Fair and amiable, therefore, 
as these heroes and heroines unquestionably were, 
they doubtless ultimately fell victims to the horrid 
vice of intemperance, notwithstanding the strength 
of their constitutions, which, it must be admitted 
was extraordinary. From all that ever I could 
make out in these romances, the ladies, though 
described as fair and fragile beings, whom a sum- 
mer wind w^ould inevitably pulverize — a compound 



EATING. 225 

of unimaginable perfections and spiritual essences 
in white muslin — were able, according to the au- 
thor, to endure more hardships and privations than 
a Highland drover, a North American Indian, or a 
Swedish soldier in Charles the Twelfth's time, and, 
like a Greenland bear, possessed wonderful capabi- 
lities for supporting nature for a long period without 
nutriment. In my unripe years, ^yhen devouring 
the delectable pages of Anne of Swansea, or Francis 
Latham, the gifted author of " Midnight Horrors," 
and the " Black Forest," often have I marvelled 
when the young lady, who was confined in an un- 
inhabited part of the castle, and had refused victuals 
for several days, was going to take her dinner. I 
used to reckon up how long it was since she had 
eaten any thing, and draw conclusions from my 
own feelings, and this it was that first staggered my 
young faith in the truth of novels. When I had 
made calculations that she must be nearly starved 
to death, I found in the next chapter the old story 
over again — " an aged domestic entered and placed 
Ibod before Almeira, from which she turned with 
loathing, and lost in a sense of her unparalleled 
situation, continued totally abstracted from all 
around," (fcc. Sometimes these heroines absolutely 
lived for a month on the smell of a boiled chicken ; 
and when their prison doors were at last broken 



% 



2'i6 EATING. 

open, and one expected they would be found to be 
starved, squalid, miserable-looking wretches, it was 
simply stated that they " never looked so lovel)^, 
confinement having imparted a delicate and melan- 
choly tint to those cheeks which — " (fee. As Ham- 
let says, " there is more in this than natural, if 
physicians could only find it out." What an inva- 
luable wife would one of those ladies make for an 
Irish peasant after his potato crop had failed. 

Walter Scott, (heaven bless him !) among his 
other worthy deeds, has revived the good old prac- 
tice of eating and drinking upon paper. His per- 
sonages, one and all, with the single exception of 
the earl of Glenallen, in the Antiquary, who made 
his dinner of vegetables and water ! are capital 
feeders ; they all eat with a relish, and seem to like 
what is set before them. There is something 
hearty in this, and persons with good digestions 
think the better of them for it. Like sensible peo- 
ple, they all do justice to good cheer whenever they 
meet with it ; and really it is enough to give a per- 
son an appetite to read the account of honest Dan- 
die Dinmont's attack on the round of cold beef, 
Waverley's breakfast in Donald Bean Lean's cave, 
or the description of the savoury stew prepared by 
Meg Merrilies in the kairn of Derncleugh, of which 
the worthy Dominie partakes. It is characteristic 



4^* 



EATING. 227 

of Shakspeare and Scott that they are fond of in- 
troducing familiar occurrences hke these amid their 
most wild and romantic scenes, while feebler writers 
are afraid to do so for fear of destroying the effect, 
or rendering what is already tame or outrageous, 
ludicrous. 

Of late there is a kind of puppyism sprung up in 
discoursing of eating, first generated by some of the 
petit-maitre correspondents of the New Monthly 
Magazine. They discourse about the pleasures of 
the table in a style of superlative affectation, treat 
all solid joints as relics of ancient barbarism, and 
all who partake of them as vulgar and John Bull- 
ish, learn the names of a dozen or two French 
dishes, and make a parade of their love of, and 
famiharity with, soups, slops, stews, and kickshaws, 
as weak, insipid, and unsubstantial as themselves. 
Puppyism in writing and dressing is bad enough, 
but puppyism on so solemn and serious a subject 
as eating, is carrying the jest a little too far. 



ALBUMS. 



Ye who in albums are required to write, 
Be wise, before you undertake the same ; 

Remember that whatever you indite, 

Remaineth, to your credit or your shame ; 

That you had better leave the paper white, 
Than rack your hapless brains with idle aim ; 

But, above all things, if the book you take. 

Don't wait a year before you bring it ha.ck,— Sands, 



Albums are one of the greatest nuisances of mo- 
dern times. They waylay you, or rather are laid 
in your way, in every house in the city, in which 
a young lady turned thirteen, happens to reside. 
They are as numerous and tormenting as flies at 
midsummer, and, like flies at midsummer, the irri- 
tating evil cannot be grappled with ; for, in both 
cases, it is apparently so trivial, that all serious op- 
position and resistance become mighty ridiculous. 
Yet human happiness is, for the most part, made 
up of trifles ; and it is to be feared that the deduc- 
tion from the sum total, during the ensuing summer 



ALBUMS. 229 

months, on the score of flies and albums, will far 
exceed that created by anxiety for the temporary 
welfare of our friends, or our own spiritual con- 
cerns. Petty evils and insect troubles frequently 
vex a person more than substantial grievances. 
The insignificance of an annoyance gives it a lu- 
dicrous character that is very provoking, and frets 
one to think that he can be so easily fretted. Many 
a man's nerves are so strung that the tickling of a 
straw will -set him almost crazy; while a heavy 
contusion brings him to his senses, and he smiles 
at the pain it occasions. Suppose, for example, a 
corpulent, choleric old merchant, preparing to take 
his after-dinner nap in an easy chair, on a sultry 
day in August — suppose sleep gently descending 
on his eyehds, and gradually and deliciously over- 
clouding his faculties — suppose, at this critical mo- 
ment, a rascally blue-bottle fly effecting his entrance 
into the room, and commencing to amuse itself by 
tickling the old gentleman. He hears its ceaseless 
buzzing in his ears, and anon feels it promenading 
across his forehead, leaving an intolerable itching 
wherever it treads. Half asleep and half awake, he 
impatientlyjerks his head, and for a moment puts 
the enemy to flight ; but it is only for a moment, 
for scarcely has he composed himself to sleep, when 
he again feels his friend taking a walk down his 
VOL. I. 20 



. « 



230 ALBVMS. 

cheek and across his chin ; he instinctively attempts; 
to crush his tormentor, and slaps his own face, 
while all the time his nerves are acquiring a pre- 
ternatural irritability. At last, a final attack upon 
the sensitive organ of smell puts sleep and patience 
to flight, and he starts from his chair in a highly 
sublimated degiee of rage, chasing the disturber of 
his peace around the room in a perfect phrenzy. 
Suppose at this instant the door to open, and the 
servant to present a letter, informing him of the 
loss of a richly-laden vessel. He becomes imme- 
diately calm and collected. This is a misfortune 
worth struggling against. He braces himself up for 
the encounter, and determines to " bear it like a 
man," Thousand& meet death with perfect calm- 
ness, but we have high authority that 

" there was never yet philosopher 

That could endure the tooth-ache patiently f 
However, they have writ the style of gods, 
And made a p-ish at chance and sufferance."' 

It is the smallness of the evil, which seems sq 
easily to be got rid of or avoided, but which cannot 
be got rid of or avoided, that destroys our equani- 
mity ; and, it is upon this ground that albums are 
afflictions of the first magnitude. The person who 
first invented them has much to answer for. They 
and steam-boats aue the greatest curses and bles- 



ALBUMS. 231 

sings of the present age ; the one has been produc- 
tive of as much trouble and inquietude as the other 
bas of comfort and convenience. 

A certain gentleman, who takes ten glasses of 
brandy per diem, justifies himself by saying, that it 
is not the use but the abuse of stimulants that is 
hurtful ; and every young lady who keeps an al- 
bum, at the same time complains that they " are 
so common." She seems to think that all her sex, 
excepting herself, are taking Hberties to which they 
are not entitled. A respectable widow in this city 
has eleven daughters, each of whom maintains an 
album ; and any unfortunate visitor who is caught 
fairly within her doors, may think himself lucky if 
he escape with the loss of five effusions. The se- 
nior portion of these misguided young ladies are 
fast verging towards a state of hopeless single bles- 
sedness, I am half inclined to believe merely on 
account of the cultivation of this pernicious habit. 
They have frightened away their oldest friends, and 
no male creature ever ventures within their reach. 
Indeed, what person in his senses would visit a 
house where a yard of poetry was required to be paid 
down as a tribute ? Though not exactly carried 
on to the same extent, there are few dwellings in 
New- York into which a person not gifted (or cursed) 
with a knack of rhyming can safely venture. It 



232 ALBUMS. 

is in vain that a man of an anti-poetical tempera- 
ment pleads that he " is no poet." " Never mind," 
cry the fair inexorables, " any thing will do ;''* 
though, at the same time, they expect their victim 
to try his very best. The fearful album is placed 
before him^ he seizes a pen^ 

" Cold drops of sweat stand on his trembling flesh,"^^ 

and in a fit of desperation he "writes himself ari 
ass," for the amusement of all future visitants. 
Now it is unfair that a man should be violently 
forced into a state of authorship against his better 
judgment — heaven knows there are enough and to 
spare, who voluntarily expose themselves, and feel 
no shame in so doing. To such ought to be left 
the filling up of these records of folly. 

There is much in a name, and " album" has 
now become a hateful sound ; yet the idea is not 
in itself bad, of a young and intelligent beauty 
preserving the scattered effiisions of genius or me- 
morials of friendship in this form. It is pleasant 
to see such a book carefully cherished, and shown 
only as an especial favor to those who may be 
thought worthy of looking over its treasured pages ; 
but to have innumerable volumes of manuscript 
scrawls, with Avhich genius and friendship have 
no connexion, continually thrust upon you-— to be 



ALBUMS. 233 

obliged to listen patiently, smilingly, politely, and to 
profess yourself pleased with the recitation of two 
or three dozen desperate attempts at poesy— to have 
the beauties of the several compositions pointed out 
to you, and to be asked your candid opinion of each, 
when you dare not for your soul speak an iota of 
truth — and in the end to be required to add your 
mite \o the collection, " suppose it be only two or 
three verses," are very disagreeable indeed, besides 
the disgrace of the thing ; for nine-tenths of the 
albums are nothing better than discreditable recep- 
tacles for disreputable pieces of prose and poetry 
that cannot, by any stretch of the imagination, ever 
hope to attain the dignity of print, or be incorpo- 
rated in a book form in any other shape. 

The alarming increase of these plagues has pro- 
bably arisen from that love of flattery which has 
been inherent in every man, woman, and child 
since the fall ; particularly, it is said, in women, 
though on that head there may be reasonable 
doubts entertained. But certainly in the majority 
'of cases where a young lady requests you to write 
dn her album, it is only a more delicate way of ask- 
ing to be flattered. If she be pretty, she hkes to 
have it put on record ; if not, she well knows that 
|)oets never intentionally speak the truth. A per- 

20* 



234 ALBUMS, 

son in the album-way, will have abundant oppor- 
tunities of seeing the justice of this remark. I have 
in their pages met with the most glowing and out- 
rageous comphments, and have invariably ascer- 
tained that they were indited by people as cold- 
blooded as tortoises ; so true it is that the affecta- 
tion of passion is ten times as violent and high- 
sounding as passion itself. One is at present lying 
before me, a few extracts from which may amuse 
the reader. 



TO DOROTHY SOPHIA 



Sweet maid! upon tky softly poutiiiglip 
The fragrance of nine thousand flowers are strown ; 

The bee from thence nectareal dews may sip, 
And otto of roses is by far outdone ! 

Couched in thine eyes one thousand cupids lie, 
Singeing their wings among those burning beams 

That dart electric fires into each passer by ; 
Poor things ! they cannot fly away, it seems ! 

Would thoii wert mine ! ah f at that daring thought 
Tltmultuous tumults burst my bursting breast — 

No matter — I will soon be where I ought, 
The grave will ope, and then I'll be at rest ! 

Algernon Augustus Wilkinson Price. 



The following is of a more grave and unhappy 
character, and the construction of the blank verse 
is almost equal to that of— — . It displays a fine 
vein of morbid feeling, and the insignificant parts 



ALBUMS. 235 

of speech with which the hnes terminate, have aii 
unostentatious and natural effect : 



Well, be it so ! 'tis no consequence, and 
I at last awake from a blissful but 
Most deceitful dream of happiness, which 
Now is flow^n for ever. I never will by 
Word or look upbraid you, though my peace is 
Totally destroyed, and my heart crushed to 
Shivers. 'Tis the lot of virtue to be 
But half appreciated, and so I 
Scorn to say a single word about my 
Most untoward fate. I soon will be a 
Piece of dull and inanimate clay and 
All will be well ! I've done, but still my 

Last and latest prayer shall be foi* no 

Matter fare thee well ! Romeo O. Higgs. 



It will be seen how strictly the amiable author of 
the foregoing has adhered to the only sure and cer- 
tain rule of making blank verse, that is, being par- 
ticular in having ten syllables per line. Nothing 
is easier, and by attending to this simple rule, an 
auctioneer's advertisement may be taken out of 
the newspapers, and made into unimpeachable 
blank verse without any sort of trouble. The 
manner in which Shakspeare and Milton have 
occasionally departed from this fundamental prin- 
ciple, is unpardonable. It was my purpose to 
give twelve or fifteen pages more of extracts, but I 
defer doing so in consequence of the heat of the 
weather. 



2g6 ALBUMS. 

If all, or a portion of the above remarks, should 
be offensive to the feeUngs of any lady who keeps 
an album, I hope she will do me the justice to be- 
lieve that I certainly meant hers to be an exception 
to these general observations* 



CONTENTMENT. 

There is perhaps no sounder or more generally 
acknowledged axiom than that the value of a thing 
is in proportion to its scarcity. This may be one 
great reason why contentment has found such 
favor in the eyes of the multitude ; every one set- 
ting the highest value on what he had not, and 
indifferent to the praise which might be bestowed 
upon its virtues and efficacy, so long as he knew 
his neighbor no richer than himself. Thus it is, 
that this thing, whose intrinsic value (except in a 
very limited degree,) is not worth a cent, has, as a 
regularly be-praised subject, equalled even Shaks- 
peare's Works, Warren's blacking, or La Fayette. 
Now I mean to say that as far as the share con- 
tentment has in the enjoyment a man feels in eat- 
ing his dinner, smoking his cigar, or, after his daily 
labor enjoying the comforts of his fire-side, it is a 
good ; but, I also say, that taken in any extended 



238 CONTENTMENT. 

sense, it is an evil of the first magnitude. To be 
content is to be satisfied — to wish for nothing — to 
aim at nothing, but to rest satisfied in whatever 
situation you may be placed. Now look at the 
world as it exists ; you will find little or no such 
thing, and well it is so. What is it that freights 
the ships — beautifies the cities — encourages the 
arts, and promotes the wealth, intelligence, and 
importance of a free and enterprising nation ? As- 
suredly not contentment. It is a passive principle, 
and, as such, man can have little sympathy with 
it. He is an active animal. His pleasures lie not so 
much in the possession as the pursuit. Is the mei 
chant happier when, quitting the din and bustle ol 
the city, his ships, his freights, and his speculations 
he hastens to the enjoyment of rural life, purchaser 
a beautiful villa, and looking around him, says 
within himself " I am content." Is he so ? no 
such thing ! He must" still busy himself with the 
news, the business, and the exchanges ; or, let him 
look at home, every thing is wrong, every thing 
wants improving — a part of his house is misbuilt — 
his walks are badly laid out, or a clump of trees 
spoils his prospect. These are mended, and this 
gives rise to new wants, and fresh improvements. 
So he goes on, and dies at last amid all the mighty 
bustle attendant on the planting of an orchard — 



CONTENTMENT. 239 

the cutting of a canal, or the building of a green- 
house. Perhaps the best personification of content- 
ment is a fat London Alderman, seated, after a plen- 
tiful dinner, in his easy chair — his wine before him 
— his pipe — his optics half closed, and not an idea 
in his brain of either past, present, or future. It is 
rather to be remarked that it is always confined to 
"fat, gross men." Contentment and corpulency go 
hand in hand. There is no analogy between it and 
leanness. A thin contented man is quite a paradox. 
Now look at its effects upon human nature. Where 
is it that all your bold, fiery, active, daring, enter- 
prising spirits are to be found ? Is it among your 
men of bone and muscle, or your men of fat and 
oil ? how many fat men are there on record that 
have ever done a daring deed? Cgesar disliked 
Cassius for his want of the aldermanic characteris- 
tics. " That Cassius is too thin." he exclaims, — 
and again, '•' although I fear him not, would he 
were fatter." 

Had Milton been a contented man, think ye the 
world would have been in possession of Paradise 
Lost. Had Byron been so, would he have written 
Childe Harold? Would a contented man have 
painted the Cartoons ; or, had Columbus been so, 
would he have been the discoverer of America? 
No ! were contentment to become in any degree 



240 CONTENTMENT. 

general, its benumbing influence would spread itself 
over all the active principles of our nature. Can it 
be supposed that such a lethargic thing and the 
lofty aspirations of genius could exist in the same 
person ? No ! the nonsense of contentment and 
a cottage is prettier in the pages of poetry than 
it would be useful in actual life. Look at its 
effects upon nations. Was the free and fiery Spar- 
tan, or the noble Roman, famed for it ? Or, to 
come to modern times, is it not notorious that 
it is to be found in the greatest degree among the 
degraded serfs of a Russian autocrat ? there is not 
in the world a more contented class of men, or who 
have less wish to change their situations than the 
Russian peasantry. It does and can only exist 
with ignorance, and where man is free and in pos- 
session of his active faculties it flies from him. 



END OF VOL, I. 



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